On a night where Harry Maguire continued to look slow and left his team up against it after an early red card, it was interesting to see one of his clubmates strolling through a game at international level.
The centre of Man United’s defence has been a big problem for a while and the talk has always been about who should partner Maguire, but you do wonder if the captain might actually be the problem.
Scott McTominay had a tough start to life as a centre back from Scotland as you could see he looked uncertain, but he’s really come on in recent games and he was outstanding tonight.
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He’s got the ability on the ball to play out from the back and he’s dominant in the air, so it was just a case of developing his positional sense and decision making.
We’ve not seen any indication that Ole Gunnar Solskjaer is considering deploying him in defence, but he might want to think about it after the Scotsman received a lot of praise for his performance tonight:
Scott mctominay strolled it again inyt. Class act
— Scott Wisely (@ScottWisely5xo) October 14, 2020
Mctominay getting better and better each match
— Ryan Brechin (@RyanBrechin) October 14, 2020
Scott mctominay and Declan Gallagher have been outstanding these 3 games. ?? Andy considine immense too. Class ???????
— jordan (@jordanthorburn1) October 14, 2020
Man Utd should have just stuck McTominay at CB rather than sign Maguire for £80m.
— Ritchie (@Ritchieknows) October 14, 2020
I thought Scotland were mad playing McTominay at the back. However, after 3 clean sheets, and given what Maguire has been up to tonight, I'm starting to think #MUFC could do a lot worse against Newcastle.
— Robert Stephenson (@robstephenson) October 14, 2020
Scott McTominay is Utds best centre back
— Gordon Kidd (@GordonKidd1986) October 14, 2020
Scot McTominay is a better defender than Harry McGuire
— MFC CT 35s (@35sCt) October 14, 2020
Watching him the last few games. Surely Scott McTominay is the answer to Man Utd central defence problem. A much better option than Maguire
— Jamie Devlin (@JamieDevlin1988) October 14, 2020
The one caveat here does come with Scotland playing a back three so it means there’s always extra cover and mistakes might be masked, but United are a shambles at the back so perhaps it’s time for McTominay to get a chance to play in defence for his club too.