Scott McTominay transfer slammed as Napoli boss details £27.5m man's 'main role' in Serie A title push

Manchester United’s decision to allow Scotland international Scott McTominay to leave the club last summer has been slammed by his former Old Trafford head coach Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, who admits he was left exasperated by his transfer to Napoli.

The 28-year-old midfielder brought down the curtain on his 22-year association with the English Premier League giants on the final day of last summer’s transfer window, signing for the Serie A outfit in a reported £27.5million transfer, linking up with fellow Scotland teammate Billy Gilmour on deadline day.

Currently three points ahead of Inter Milan at the top of the table, McTominay is on the cusp of winning the first league title of his career and has been a revelation in his debut season at the Diego Armando Maradona Stadium, scoring 11 league goals and breaking Denis Law’s 63-year record for the most goals scored by a Scotsman in a single Serie A season in the process.

Scott McTominay faces a mammoth three weeks with Napoli. | Getty Images

His former boss at Manchester United believes the transfer should have never been allowed to take place by the Red Devils hierarchy though, with the Norwegian bemoaning the midfielder’s departure. “How you can sell Scott is beyond me,” Solskjaer told the BBC. "Scott and Fred together, they were lads you would put your hat on every day to give 100%.”

However, his current manager Antonio Conte believes that his move to Napoli in the summer has improved the Scottish star, telling the Italian media at the weekend: “I think McTominay is stronger today than when he arrived from United,. Here he has grown a lot.

“I think that he himself feels stronger, with more knowledge, that he is also reaching an important stage of his age to understand where to go in his career because up to now he has been in the middle, he has never had a main role at United that instead we have given him here, he has grown a lot by working, today he is complete.”

Napoli will now face a mammoth final three games in the Serie A season, with clashes against Genoa, Parma and Cagliari set to determine their fate over the next 20 days.