We’re in February in the 2023/24 season and Manchester United’s leading goalscorer is a defensive midfielder who has started 12 Premier League games.
Scott McTominay has been the hero for United on a number of occasions this year, most recently reminding his forwards how to score by netting a late winner against Aston Villa after coming off the bench.
Having also shown an eye for goal at international level, United fans have begun to question whether McTominay’s future should be further forward on the pitch. Well, should it?
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From his debut in 2017 up to the end of the 2022/23 campaign, McTominay had scored a total of 12 goals in 144 Premier League games. A respectable total for a defensive midfielder.
This year, however, McTominay has stepped it up. He has netted seven times in 21 outings, including winning goals against Brentford, Chelsea and now Villa. The Scotland international has been prolific, often entering games late on and popping up with game-deciding goals.
He’s averaging a goal every 172 minutes this season – pretty much one every two games – compared to one every 752 heading into this campaign.
If there was a simple answer to this question, defences would be stopping him. In truth, a combination of attributes make McTominay a danger in the box.
While he’s a defensive midfielder by trade, McTominay loves getting forward and boasts impeccable timing when it comes to late runs into the box. He obviously doesn’t have the same record as someone like Frank Lampard, but it’s the same sort of attribute – that ability to sense space and predict where the ball will end up.
Many of McTominay’s goals feel as though he is simply in the right place at the right time. When that happens once, it’s good fortune. Twice, and it’s perhaps the start of a trend. At this point, however, none of the midfielder’s goals are coming by chance.
Fearless in his willingness to throw himself into headers, McTominay’s art of box-crashing chaos is just that, an art.
On top of that all, McTominay simply boasts a sweet strike….
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