Ruben Amorim got another reminder of just how far this Man Utd team still needs to go, made harder by the fact that the club have already sold his ideal player.
Man Utd’s 0-1 loss to Everton, who played with ten men for more than an hour, hammered home the key deficiency of this side.
When the stakes are high, and the opportunity is there to be grabbed, this Man Utd squad wilt under the pressure and cedes the advantage.
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What they needed on the day were players who take the game by the scruff of its neck and drive the standards. Unfortunately, that player has already been sold by the club.
Scott McTominay of Manchester United celebrates scoring the winning goal with team mates Christian Eriksen, Alejandro Garnacho, Rasmus Hojlund and Harry Maguire during the Premier League match between Manchester United and Brentford FC at Old Trafford on October 7, 2023
Photo by Joe Prior/Visionhaus via Getty Images
Ruben Amorim missed Scott McTominay vs Everton
It sounds weird to talk about a player who was sold in the 2024 summer window after a game lost in the winter of 2025, but it’s impossible to look at United’s loss to Everton and not talk about Scott McTominay.
McTominay’s exploits since leaving United are well-talked about by now, so they don’t need to be repeated. What needs telling is how he could have been Ruben Amorim’s ideal player.
At a time when Amorim is calling out Manuel Ugarte, who effectively replaced him at Old Trafford, the spectre of McTominay is growing large.
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Against Everton, when United looked toothless against a low block with no space between the lines, they needed a box-crashing presence from deep.
McTominay, misprofiled as a defensive midfielder at United, does this job regularly at Napoli, and showed glimpses of it when he was in England.
He arguably single-handedly kept Erik ten Hag in the job with late heroics on numerous occasions, most of which came when United needed goals late on, and he was given freedom to venture forward.
He came alive in the final third with his anticipation and movement arriving from deep, the trait missed most by United against Everton.
Combine that with his physicality, athleticism, and driven nature to work hard and stay a model professional, and you get a player literally tailor-made for the No. 6 role under Amorim.
McTominay-Manuel Ugarte error haunting Man Utd
Selling McTominay when he was sold is still defensible to an extent because he would have struggled to reach those heights had he stayed at the club.
What the club did after selling him is less understandable, buying a limited player in Ugarte who was the antithesis of Ten Hag’s philosophy.
The same goes for Amorim, as Ugarte has fallen down the pecking order while McTominay gets a Ballon d’Or nomination.
The race to sell academy players for that dreaded two-word phrase “pure profit” is counter-productive, because the player away from the club always seems more desirable.
The McTominay-Ugarte deals sum up modern football at its worst. Had Ugarte come through the ranks at United, he would have been sold to make way for McTominay’s signing from another club.