McTominay apologises for loo break and vows to win Tartan Army over
Scott McTominay has offered an impassioned apology to Callum McGregor, James McFadden and the Scotland support for his dramatic exit in Kazakhstan.
The Manchester United midfielder unwittingly sparked a row between his international skipper and coach through his dart down the tunnel at fulltime at the Astana Arena on Thursday night.
McGregor was angry McTominay hadn’t hung on to thank the Tartan Army for their backing after what was a desperately disappointing display, and refused to be mollified by the efforts of Alex McLeish’s assistant to calm him down.
“The past couple of days I’ve had a bit of a stomach bug and I’ve been nursing that,” explained McTominay.
“I had to leave one of the training sessions to go to the toilet. Whenever you’re desperate, you have to go and it was the same at full-time.
“Callum was simply being a good captain. I would have reacted exactly the same.
“All he did was ask where I was going. Faddy told him and that was it.
“I went back out and tried to go over to the fans until I realised that the manager was speaking and I was called back in.
“That was the end of it. Everybody knows I’m not the type of lad to do something like that.
“I’ve never done it in my career, and it’s ridiculous how these things can end up being blown up. So I want to nip it in the bud.”
It is a measure of the 22–yearold’s desire to do so that he has felt the need to issue both public and private apologies.
“I spoke to Callum and Faddy and apologised for any confusion it caused between the two of them.
“It was an emergency and the circumstances were out of my hands.
“The fans had no idea what was happening. They had no idea I had a stomach bug and had to go for an emergency after the match.
“So I would like to apologise to them too.
“The fans should know how much I love Scotland, and love my club too.”
McTominay now hopes to take a more practical approach to at least trying to start fixing
the damage done by helping deliver victory today against San Marino.
“Thursday was probably my lowest moment in the game,” he admitted.
“That’s the first time I’ve ended up back in my room just looking at the ceiling thinking: ‘That was not good’.
“It’s not a feeling that I want to experience again. It hurt, it really did.
“I’ve had a few bad losses at club level, too, and it’s all about how you react.
“It’s about being disappointed on the night, reflecting on it and then the next day it’s forgotten about.
“We’re looking forward to the next match. That’s important.
“If you dwell on things, it keeps going and eventually you kill yourself because you can’t get over a loss that you should have got over on the night.
“When you look round the individuals in our team – Stuart Armstrong, Oli Burke, Callum McGregor, James Forrest – they are top players, and we can go on to do really good things.
“We’ve had one match. If we lost that game 2-1, having put in a good performance, people would be saying what a good group of players we have. We were unlucky.
“It was the manner we lost in that is the problem. But it’s not like we have played four, five, six games, and we are starting to struggle.
“There is time to put things right.”
McTominay insists that can be achieved under the charge of Alex McLeish.
“The manager will take more criticism than others, but I think everybody has to take a bite out of that cherry,” he said.
“Every player in the dressing-room and every member of staff is behind the manager.
“I owe him a lot. He gave me the chance to play for Scotland.”