UNITED Great Scott is new Fletch!
DARREN Fletcher was so maligned early on by United supporters the Red Issue fanzine could not bring themselves to put his name in print.
Roy Keane said he could not ‘understand why people in Scotland rave about’ the Scottish player in that unaired MUTV chat and a Scot named Darren was bound to ensure Fletcher would be viewed as Sir Alex Ferguson’s surrogate son.
The former United manager’s Freudian slip fuelled the jesting when he referred to Fletcher as ‘Darren Ferguson’ – the name of his middle son – following the August 2008 win at Portsmouth. Fletcher was supposedly such a teacher’s pet he ‘never got a b ******** g ever,’ according to Rio Ferdinand, and another budding United Scottish midfielder is enjoying favourable treatment.
Scott McTominay could commit to the Scotland national team within the next month after the most unlikely of ascents under Jose Mourinho. Nine months ago, he was a nondescript midfielder for the underwhelming Under-23s and now McTominay is starting in Champions League and top-six encounters, the former at the expense of Paul Pogba.
“He has everything,” Mourinho beamed in the Old Trafford tunnel on Sunday. The golden child has also been hailed as a ‘genius,’ ‘fundamental’ and ‘crucial’ by his manager. Mourinho hugged BT Sport’s Des Kelly for asking about McTominay in Seville and supporters are starting to believe the hype. “Seventy per cent of the Earth is covered by water, The rest is covered by Kante, Kante is covered by Scott McTominay,” one wag tweeted.
Some of the comments seem premature. McTominay has played 17 times for United, which is almost as many appearances as Paddy McNair made in his first year. He was sold to Sunderland for £5m.
Many clubs have a player who their manager sees something in which is not always visible to others. Fletcher eventually emerged as one of the most important players in Ferguson’s postChampions League-winning squad and it was only the debilitating ulcerative colitis illness that halted his influence.
McTominay is, a little like Jesse Lingard, a late bloomer. The 21-year-old attained no international honours as a teenager and hardly seemed like a contender to earn a promotion to the senior squad during his stint in the United reserves. Neither did McNair.
Tom Cleverley debuted five days after his 22nd birthday and was a revelation in the Community Shield comeback against City. He then began to believe his own hype, trademarking a TC23 brand after seven United appearances. Cleverley serves as a warning for United’s academy midfielders like McTominay. Some United players voiced their dismay at the midfield’s risk-aversive passing after a goalless firsthalf against Huddersfield three weeks ago but Mourinho, a little like Ferguson with Fletcher, refused to hear a bad word said about McTominay. “I think the kid Scott grew up with the game,” he said following United’s 2-0 success. “He started a bit nervous and then he was fundamental for us in the way that he gave us that desire to recover the ball and we could play.” Samuel Luckhurst
McTominay allows Mourinho to shatter the myth that he overlooks academy players and you have to wonder whether the boss would have plucked him from the stiffs had the youngster not grown 10 inches in 18 months.
Yet in his biggest game he provided a glimpse. McTominay showed some adventure with that clipped pass into the right-hand channel for Romelu Lukaku to collect before he found the ghosting Jesse Lingard on the edge of Chelsea’s six-yard box. The Michael Carrick comparisons were credible in that instance.
United still need to define McTominay’s role. He is barely an attacking threat, having managed just four goals in the junior teams, and his failure to track Willian and Bristol City’s Korey Smith highlighted defensive deficiencies. McTominay will learn from that.
It is McTominay’s forward thinking which should spur him to develop into a player who truly merits his place in the United team. It happened for Fletcher.