Former Manchester United player and current pundit Gary Neville was at it yet again- making a scathing critique of some aspect of his former club. United manager Jose Mourinho, always a very opinionated sort himself, has of course returned fire.
Neville said that McTominay, who has not scored or assisted in any of his 25 United appearances this season, it not good enough on the ball to play midfield for this team. The pundit thinks Mourinho should change his position, as he believes the 21-year-old has a skill set more suitable to be a centre-half. As you would expect, Mourinho didn’t take too kindly to these remarks.
“McTominay, when I watch him, I’m not sure he’s actually good enough on the ball to be a Man United midfield player,” Neville told Sky Sports.
“I do think he’s the type that it’s good for him to play games in there – but I do wonder whether if actually he’s got more of a position at centre back eventually, the physicality that he has. He’s a big lad.
“Is he sharp enough on the ball to be a Man United central midfield player?”
McTominay was named Mourinho’s unofficial player of the year earlier this month. He’s enjoyed a campaign which has seen him promoted to the first team, and then rewarded with a contract extension.
Mourinho gave MUTV, the club’s in-house web video channel, an analysis of United’s season. During his assessment, he defended the young Scottish international from the critique of Gary Neville.
“It depends the way you want to analyze it. If you want to be positive and respect the effort of everyone and the clear numbers and pragmatic numbers of the improvement, you say all positive things,” Mourinho expounded.
“The best position for five years, a huge amount of points that would normally give a fight for the title until the last few weeks, lots of clean sheets, Golden Glove, more goals than last season and the second-best team in the country. Also, in the second major competition in the country, we are one of the two best teams. We are playing the final, so if you want to read it in a positive way, you can in a very objective way.”
He then added: “But if you want to be negative, you can always be negative. You can be negative until the point that you say that Scott McTominay, who is a kid who arrived here at nine years old, is not good enough. So if you want to be negative, you can be negative without dimensions.”
Mourinho certainly makes a solid case- he definitely provides a lot good counter-point to the points raised by Neville.
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank.net and TheBank.News, which is partnered with News Now. Banks, a former writer for the Washington Times, NBC Chicago.com and Chicago Tribune.com, currently contributes regularly to WGN CLTV and the Tribune company’s blogging community Chicago Now.
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