Scott McTominay is one of the surprise packages of this season – the midfielder has retained his place ahead of Fred and Casemiro to build an unlikely partnership with Christian Eriksen at the heart of United’s midfield.
United are on a four-game winning streak and McTominay has started in all of the games, keeping Casemiro on the bench for three of them.
Signing Casemiro was a big-money mission by United – the Brazilian was settled at Real Madrid and still maintains his status as one of the best in the world.
But thus far, he hasn’t been able to convince Ten Hag that he should be playing ahead of McTominay, who had been heavily criticised over the last three years.
There’s a very reasonable explanation for that. McTominay has improved and not by a little. Under Ten Hag, his positional sense has exceeded all expectations and his calmness on the ball, although it’s not on Eriksen’s level, is staggering.
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Casemiro is a world-class player but on current form and trajectory, it would make very little sense to drop McTominay to the bench. Especially with the Manchester derby coming up in six days.
McTominay has furthered tightened his grip on his position at United by performing well for Scotland. He played 90 minutes in the two wins against Ukraine and Ireland but most importantly, he anchored the midfield.
At last summer’s European Championship, he was used as a right-sided centre-back by Scotland. That’s not going to happen again anytime soon.
According to Statman Dave, McTominay won seven out of his eleven ground duels against Ireland, completed three out of four dribbles, won two out of three tackles and completed one key pass from 59 touches.
They are impressive numbers and still, a handful of performances for United have been better. Against Sheriff Tiraspol, he won five tackles in the first half alone.
It might have been unexpected and some fans will continue to harbor doubts over McTominay but his spectacular form is nothing but positive for United, even if that means leaving Casemiro on the bench.
