Manchester United sold Scott McTominay last summer to Napoli and the decision has since been criticised due to the midfielder’s success in Italy.
Last summer, Manchester United sanctioned Scott McTominay’s £25 million transfer to Italian giants Napoli without much resistance.
Despite scoring some key goals for United in the previous campaign, McTominay, 28, was not a regular starter. As a homegrown player, the entire fee from his sale was seen as pure profit.
Fast forward to this season, and many United fans are now lamenting his departure. With the club languishing in the bottom half of the Premier League and struggling for attacking output, McTominay’s absence is being sorely felt.
Meanwhile, the Scottish midfielder has become a key figure in Antonio Conte’s Napoli side, helping fuel their Serie A title push with vital contributions from midfield.
In 35 appearances so far this season, McTominay has racked up 12 goals and four assists — marking the most productive campaign of his career in terms of goal involvement.
Keane reveals the unspoken reason why United fans miss McTominay
Despite the midfielder shining away from Old Trafford, Roy Keane still believes that it was the right decision for United to sell McTominay.
The ex-United captain instead suggests that the problem is that the club failed to replace him with better players. In the summer, the Reds signed Manuel Ugarte from PSG for £42 million and he has had mixed form this season.
“What didn’t help Scott was that it was him and Fred together, I know Ole praised the two of them. I always knew there was something in Scott but as a partnership it wasn’t happening, United weren’t competing,” Keane began on Stick to Football this week.
“He’s always had a goal in him and he’s got that to another level in Italy. That helps. If he wasn’t scoring the goals at Napoli, we wouldn’t be talking about him.
“But you can’t keep talking about players who leave a big club and say ‘we should have kept him’, you can’t keep everyone. I think he could have been in the group, 100 per cent, but if you’re saying he’d play every week, I’m on about United getting back to the top.
“What didn’t help is the players they’ve brought in instead of him, they’ve not brought in better and that’s why you keep going back to these players. But I think United’s recruitment has been that poor that you still talk about people like McTominay.”
Keane raises a good point about McTominay sale
It is a good point raised by Keane – United are only feeling the absence of McTominay’s goals since they failed to bring in any serious final third threats and the midfield replacement in Ugarte hasn’t been game-changing.
McTominay was a very useful player but there would be minimal chat if the club had made some smarter signings and were performing well this season.
In fact, it’s good to see players doing well away from Old Trafford when they leave. You don’t want everyone who is sold to have a terrible career.
But when things are bad at the club, question marks arise over everything. McTominay was much better than some gave him credit for, but the bigger problem is that United failed to recruit goalscorers to replace his output, and that needs to be fixed in the summer.
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