Neapolitan life looks great on Scott McTominay. He swaggers on and off the pitch. His hair is shinier and healthier, his smile brighter. Armani designs the kits. He loves the food, particularly local tomatoes and the fresh fish. He loves being loved.
After a brace in Napoli’s Monday evening’s 3-0 win over Empoli, Gazzetta dello Sport knighted McTominay “Lord of the Midfield” and suggested cloning him. Corriere dello Sport called him Serie A’s “best purchase of the season by far”. Tuttosport went with “almost perfect”.
Perennially undervalued in Manchester, “McSauce” has started every Serie A match bar one since coming off the bench against Cagliari to debut last September. His eight non-penalty league goals are more than any Manchester United player this season.
Yet there was always the sense at United he was just a placeholder for a superstar, a warm body to weather the dark times.
This always exposed the worst of United’s arrogance, and ultimately the club needed McTominay far more than he needed them. Every goal he scored last season had a decisive impact, worth 12 points in the Premier League and progression in both the quarters and semi-finals of the FA Cup.
He is a rare player in his ability to pinpoint and exploit gaps, one of the most intelligent goalscoring midfielders of his generations and a sharp finisher, largely used as a defensive midfielder by three consecutive United managers. In his own words, he was “misprofiled”. This remains an astonishing failure of scouting and player development.
It probably helped McTominay settle in that the city of Naples has a curious parallel to Manchester United: a living ruin, past and present struggling to co-exist. But the club itself thrives on idolatry and vitality, and McTominay is a wonderfully vital footballer and an easy man to idolise.
And so he has become the next of an illustrious list to leave Manchester and experience football’s equivalent to a Damascene conversion.
In the last two seasons alone, either on loan or permanently you can point to Marcus Rashford, Alvaro Carreras, Aaron Wan-Bissaka, Hannibal Mejbri, Axel Tuanzebe, David de Gea, Anthony Elanga, Fred, Dean Henderson, Antony, Jadon Sancho, Anthony Martial and Donny van de Beek.
You only have to look at the current United inmates to appreciate the psychological and physical impacts the club has. Christian Eriksen’s hair has fallen out. Rasmus Hojlund looks like Roy Keane is his sleep paralysis demon.
Andre Onana is suffering from temporary losses in limb control, which appears to be catching. Mason Mount has scored once since leaving Chelsea in 2023.
“The perception is very negative,” Eriksen told Sky Sports this week. “It’s difficult to read through what’s happening outside and still coming into training and being happy and normal. It takes something from you that you have to be aware of what’s going on outside.
“Especially here with all the focus from the outside, the spotlight is on you. In a bad time at the club, then obviously it’s going to be a lot harder mentally.
“It’s very hard for a lot of the young guys where it’s the first time going through this kind of pressure.”
This mental strain is the common thread across every jaded and underperforming United star of the past decade, the biggest problem the club cannot progress without solving. Every new signing is eventually infected in the same way, folding into a red blob of fatigue and apathy.
The real question is how to alleviate that pressure. There was a hope consistent underperformance might adjust expectations, but even the ownership still believe they can win the Premier League by 2028. This institutional delusion and self-harm is as baffling as it is unhelpful.
And yet Ruben Amorim’s honesty about “the worst Manchester United team in history” is probably too far the other way, an insult without any hope of redemption.
What this squad needs is support and realism, achievable goals to gradually rebuild some semblance of confidence and identity. For all the criticisms of recruitment, the success of outgoing players highlights more significant issues within the wider setup. Talent is being twisted and crushed by the sheer weight of misguided expectation.
The greatest gift United could give themselves is irrelevance, but that simply isn’t feasible. Instead, the further they fall, the greater the pressure. The only way they can release themselves is the only thing they cannot do: stop being Manchester United.
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