by With the greatest respect for Scott McTominay, a talented player that he is, comparisons with Eric Cantona were probably not too abundant during his Manchester United career. But for a spell just over a year ago, he took on one of the Frenchman’s infamous and less desirable traits.
Ahead of Scotland’s European Championship qualifier against Cyprus this time last year, McTominay was in the doldrums. He has not started a game for his club in the English Premier League since losing to Arsenal in late January and had to wait until the FA cup ties to get any game time.
He went on international duty in late March as usual, and consciously, he would not give less than one hundred percent to his country. But Scotland head coach Steve Clarke could sense that something was wrong with one of his main men.
A heart-to-heart followed, and so did the double against Cyprus and two more goals to achieve a famous victory over Spain. Suddenly, McTominay’s frown was turned upside down, as was his form.
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The weight taken off his shoulders made him a major goal threat for both Scotland and Manchester United, allowing him to force his way into Eric ten Haag’s thinking on a much more regular basis.
McTominay may not be Cantona, then, and he would be the first to admit it. But his importance to club and country cannot be understated, and the modest Man United star credits Clarke with much of the credit for his remarkable turnaround in success – and his mood.
“That was the camp where me and the manager sat down and he said I didn’t look happy, I didn’t look like I was smiling about the place,” McTominay said.
“I thought, ‘Maybe he’s right.’ I went and spoke to my mum, my dad, my girlfriend at the time and they all said pretty much the same thing.
“Sometimes, you just have to enjoy football and play with a smile on your face and take it easy. It’s not the end of the world if you’re not playing that well and you’re not on the team, no matter what.
“Since then, to be fair, I’ve just thought ‘I’ll go for it’. It was a weight that was taken off my shoulders. It shows you that talking to someone – especially the manager because he is honest and will tell you up front – can make a significant difference.
“He said he wanted to see the kid who was happy when he first came on the scene and was playing every week. He saw a boy who was smiling all the time.
“Now I look back and think, yeah, maybe sometimes pressure and things like that come up and you don’t realize it can affect you. Sometimes he does a little bit, and you just have to take a step back and say ‘Listen, let’s play football, like he did as a kid and enjoy it.’
“I wasn’t playing at that time, so I had to push myself to play. I don’t like it when I’m not playing. It hurts me when I’m not playing. So, I’m obviously going to be upset whenever I enter the camp. I’m running into the training ground, I’m not sulking, but I want to play. It’s your career, you want to be a part of it as much as possible.
“After that conversation, obviously things settle down a bit and you just think ‘You know what, you have one career, you might as well go for it while you’re here.’
“There will always be difficult times in your career where it is not easy and it will be difficult for you to take a step back and reflect on where you have come from and where you want to go.
“Sometimes a chat with the manager can be the best thing for you. It resets your brain, it resets your mind, and you think, ‘You know what I can do with this.’
“If I’m good enough and talented enough to play every game in the team I want to show that I can gain the public’s trust.”
He’s definitely got Clarke, and the feeling is more than anything else. McTominay’s impressive return over the past year has largely been credited to an inspired positional tweak by the Scotland head coach, but the midfielder says it has as much to do with the faith he has in him as any another thing.
“I’ve never had confidence, to a certain extent,” he said.
“I’ve always been proud of how well I’m doing, or how bad I’ve played, the next game I’ll still show myself, I’ll still want the ball. I will not shy away from anything.
“I’ve always wanted to be the player who doesn’t seem like that type of nervous character.
“Sometimes I think things just click. You get yourself higher up the pitch and you score more goals. It’s progress from there.
“It was just a case of, if you’ve got a bit more license to get into the box, you’ve got to make the most of it.
“If there are four or five times when you can get into the box let’s use it.”
Long gone are the days when McTominay was pressed into action as a center back for his country.
“Obviously in myself I know I was doing that for the team, but deep down I knew I wanted to be in the box, and I want to be using my legs and my power to go through midfield and into the box. and score,” he said.
“But you can never go and ‘Bloody hell, what’s going on here?’ to say. You just have to take it step by step with the team and if that’s the role you’re given, you take it and prove to yourself that you can do that.
“Then, when the time comes you might have a little chat, but I’ve never had to because the manager is so good to me and he would always put certain kinds of things on me.
“I never had to go and knock on his door and say ‘What’s going on here? I want to play here.’ He knows I want to do that, and that’s how it really went.”
Given McTominay’s prolific form, it was a surprise that the Tartan Army watched him combine with his team-mates to score some glorious chances in the win over the Dutch in Amsterdam on Friday night.
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You feel determined to put that right against Northern Ireland at Hampden this evening, and not accept a waste like they showed in the Johan Cruyff Arena. And the late slump that made a more than creditable performance up to that point is certainly not insignificant.
“No way [can we accept that]because we know the standards for 20 minutes,” said McTominay.
“For the first 70 minutes, yes, it was good, but we have to score. We understand that we must score.
“Not even if, but or maybe, you have to score the goals when the opportunities we had were presented, myself included.
“If you win and the team plays well it gives everyone a boost. That’s what we want for Scotland, playing against really good teams. We are playing some of the best international teams in the world and I feel we have more than our own. We were very sorry a few times.
“But there will be a few games coming up when people realize we can put three or four in and suddenly it’s a different story.”
*Scott McTominay was speaking as he was named the William Hill Scottish Football Writers Association International Player of the Year.
