Celebrating McTominay's recent landmark

Although the headlines were concerned with how Erik ten Hag’s side had blown away our La Liga opposition in the second half, that evening in M16 was a particularly special one for Scott McTominay, who entered the fray as a late substitute for Fred.

It was the Scotland international’s 200th senior appearance for United, the club he has been associated with for over two decades.

It’s a significant landmark to reach for the central midfielder and a fairly rare one too, when you consider the extraordinary number of footballers the Reds have produced over the years.

We can confirm that Scott is only the 32nd Academy graduate to make a double-century of appearances for United and he joins Marcus Rashford as the only current homegrown Reds on the list, which includes some of the most famous names in our history.

Former Ballon d’Or winners George Best and Sir Bobby Charlton, the six most prominent members of the famed ‘Class of 92’ and 2018 World Cup victor Paul Pogba are all in there and it is testament to our consistent youth-to-first-team pipeline that the list contains players from every decade since the 1940s.

McTominay is perhaps the textbook example for those currently coming through the Academy, having started his relationship with the club at the age of five.

Initially a slight no.10, he developed physically during his time with the Under-18s and was a regular as a central midfielder for the Under-21s in 2016/17 before being called into the senior set-up by Jose Mourinho.

Scott made his first-team debut at Arsenal in May 2017 and became a regular under the Portuguese manager the following season, continuing that important role under Ole Gunnar Solskjaer and Ralf Rangnick.

A combative presence in midfield, Scott tends to play in a deep-lying position but he has added goals to his game as his United career has progressed, scoring 18 times in 201 games to date – and self-belief and the constant search for development have been key themes in McTominay’s career so far.

“You have to believe in yourself if you want to be at this football club for as long as you can,” he told the UTD Podcast in 2020. “You have to want to be one of the first names on the teamsheet, who is playing every week. That’s always the ambition and that never leaves you.

“So you can look back at your career and think you did pretty much everything that you wanted to, in terms of respecting yourself and pushing yourself as hard as you can every day, and those around you.

“You don’t want to look back and have regrets, thinking you should have done this or that. For players like us, it’s important to have no regrets. We got told that at a young age.”

Even with increased competition in midfield this season, from Casemiro, Christian Eriksen and Marcel Sabitzer, he’s appeared in Erik ten Hag’s side 31 times so far – also winning his first major honour with United last month, the Carabao Cup.

Scott, who made his 201st appearance in the 0-0 draw with Southampton, will presumably add to his tally quickly over the next few weeks as Casemiro sits out the next four domestic games through suspension, starting with Sunday's Emirates FA Cup tie against Fulham.