Former Manchester United midfielder Scott McTominay scored a brilliant opening goal to help clinch the Serie A title in his first season with new club Napoli as Antonio Conte’s side beat Cagliari 2-0.
A Misuse of Talent?
McTominay, 28, joined the Red Devils as a five-year-old and rapidly ascended through the ranks at Old Trafford after impressing academy coaches with his attitude and physicality.
The Scottish international made his debut for the first-team at the end of the 2016/17 season under Jose Mourinho. The following year, the Portuguese coach created his own ‘Manager’s Player of the Year’ award to specifically award it to McTominay such was his admiration of the midfielder.
McTominay would go on to rack up make 225 appearances for United, scoring 29 goals and providing eight assists in across seven years in the senior side. But throughout this time, the Scot was consistently deployed as a defensive midfielder due to the paucity of options at the club in the middle of the pitch.
This position did not suit McTominay, however. He lacks the technical capability to progress the ball from deep and being stationed in his own half, rather than the opposition’s, severely limited his excellent box-crashing ability.
United were open to his departure last summer as INEOS prioritised the sales of academy players to bring in more money due to the fact their departures constitutes ‘pure profit’ from a PSR perspective.
McTominay was sold in a deal worth an initial £21 million with a further £4.2 million in potential add-ons to Napoli. With this income, the Reds were able to agree a move for Paris Saint-Germain midfielder Manuel Ugarte as a replacement.
Conte, Napoli’s manager, was pivotal in identifying the 28-year-old as target, believing he had untapped potential as an attacking number eight, rather than the number six role he was forced to play at Old Trafford.
And it has proven one of the best pieces of business of that summer window with McTominay scoring 12 goals and providing six assists in the league this season. He was selected for Serie A’s Team of the Season – a reflection of how highly regarded the midfielder has become in Italy.
Ugarte, by comparison, has struggled to adapt to the intensity of English football and was dropped for United’s Europa League final loss to Tottenham Hotspur on Wednesday.
A New Legend in Naples
McTominay has now been written into Napoli’s history after he scored the opening goal in tonight’s victory at the Diego Armando Maradona Stadium to help seal just the fourth Serie A title in Gli Azzurri’s 99-year history.
Napoli needed to match Inter Milan’s result against Como – their closest challenger at the summit of Serie A – to win the title.
Conte’s side began the match in front of a raucous home crowd but a sense of nervousness began to build after Inter took the lead. But McTominay, so often the man for the big occasion for Napoli this season, produced a brilliant bicycle kick as he was falling to the ground to put his team 1-0 up in the 41st minute.
It was a predatory finish any world-class number nine would be proud of and the current cohort of strikers at Old Trafford could only dream of pulling off.
WHAT A GOAL SCOTT MCTOMINAY 🤩
IT HAD TO BE HIM 🏴
Cross in the box from Politano, and McTominay’s overhead kick puts Napoli in the driving seat for the Serie A title now 🏆
📺 @tntsports & @discoveryplusUK pic.twitter.com/UapBowrdnN
— Football on TNT Sports (@footballontnt) May 23, 2025
Former United striker Romelu Lukaku then doubled Napoli’s lead at the start of the second half to put the game beyond Cagliari and bring home the Scudetto to Naples, despite Inter beating Como by the same score line.
It is a truly remarkable achievement for McTominay with few British players choosing to move abroad, let alone to do so by winning a major European title. There must a sense of regret echoing through the walls of Old Trafford tonight.
In the commentary, TNT broadcaster Adam Summerton stated, “I still can’t believe [McTominay] was allowed to leave Manchester United.”
Earlier in the season, Mourinho described the Scottish international as “one of the best midfielders in Europe” while Ole Gunnar Solskjaer expressed his disbelief at United’s decision to let him leave last summer.
“Scott [McTominay] and Fred together, they were lads you would put your hat on every day to give 100%. How you can sell Scott is beyond me,” the Norwegian coach stated earlier this month.
With McTominay ending his campaign with more league goals than any player in Ruben Amorim’s squad, INEOS will undoubtedly be casting a rueful eye towards Italy where the former United man has thrived at a time his boyhood club have struggled so acutely.
A Scudetto won in Naples by a man made in Manchester.
Feature image Francesco Pecoraro via Getty Images
Follow us on Bluesky: @peoplesperson.bsky.social
Darragh Fox
Darragh is a writer for The Peoples Person who spent three years as a history graduate slowly realising football was by far the most interesting thing to write about.
