Scott McTominay provides Mourinho an opportunity to show he can develop youth

There is a subtle difference between a fact and the truth, and Jose Mourinho knows that.

“You know how many young players I promoted to the first team from academies?” Mourinho asked in 2016. “Forty-nine. Some of them are big names, they are Champions League winners in the Euros, playing for national teams. One lie repeated many times sometimes looks true but it will never be true.”

Mourinho’s use of a fact to convey what he perceives to be a truth is an old trick, and one that perhaps does not stand up to heavy scrutiny. What remains indisputable, however, is the trust and faith that the Portuguese has shown towards Scott McTominay, who had his best game in a Manchester United shirt on Sunday against Chelsea.

“I think I don’t give trust for free,” Mourinho said recently. “I think it’s the other way round, I don’t think it’s about the manager to trust the player, it’s the player to make the manager trust him, is as simple as that.”

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The youngster, still just 21-years-old, has had a curious journey to the Manchester United first team. At the start of 2015 he stood at 5ft 6, but a dramatic growth spurt in 2016 saw him eventually end up at well over 6ft tall. Prior to that, coaches at Old Trafford had been skeptical about whether he could make it at the top level, something which may still be up for debate.

It would be misleading, however, to suggest that McTominay’s burgeoning career is down solely to physical development. The midfielder is impressive technically and Warren Joyce, who worked with McTominay at reserve team level, defined him as an ‘aggressive box-to-box midfielder’.

The 21-year-old has played a little over a dozen games for Mourinho this season, and as such, little is really known of the player he could be. That hasn’t stopped his international future being a topic of debate though, along with questions over what kind of midfielder McTominay will become, with another England v Scotland discussion emerging.

Some see a similarity to Darren Fletcher, the rampaging water carrier that gives himself for the team with a selfless performance. That was certainly the role Mourinho deployed him in during the 0-0 draw against Sevilla in the Champions League recently.

“He put lots of pressure on [Ever] Banega which was important to stop him playing,” Mourinho said afterwards. “He was always comfortable, simple saving in possession. He was brilliant.”

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Others see Michael Carrick; a player with technical skill that can sit deeper –perhaps behind Nemanja Matic and Paul Pogba– and play through the lines. Of course, there remains a possibility McTominay is neither, and like Darron Gibson or Tom Cleverly before him, he will rack up a handful of appearances before being sold on to another club.

Mourinho seems optimistic though. He clearly sees someone he not only admires, but someone he can shape into what he desires, describing him as a ‘blank canvas’ recently.

“Even now after I would say maybe eight starts, something like that, he has a lot to learn but since the first moment he was learning that is the way to perform,” Mourinho said.

On Sunday, McTominay’s role was that of disrupting Chelsea’s attack. Although McTominay was arguably at fault for not tracking Willian for the Blue’s goal he recovered well to provide an important influence on the team defensively and shut down Eden Hazard before the Belgian was eventually withdrawn.

McTominay’s tireless running, mixed with his ability to avoid yellow cards, (he was the only midfielder on Sunday not to commit a foul) makes him a prime candidate to be a modern defensive midfielder.

Whether that pushes him closer to Carrick or Fletcher is inconsequential at this point. What is clear is that Mourinho trusts the youngster, deeming him a ‘genius’, ‘fundamental’ and ‘crucial’ this season.

Some of Mourinho’s comments feel premature, but it would seem he has seen something in McTominay in much the same way Ferguson did with Fletcher. Roy Keane famously said he could not ‘understand why people in Scotland rave about’ Fletcher during an unaired MUTV interview, but Sir Alex Ferguson persisted, and in turn Fletcher earned the admiration of teammates and supporters alike.

When Mourinho signed his new contract recently Ed Woodward spoke of how he had ‘embraced the club’s desire to promote top quality young players to the first team’. Whether McTominay is top quality or a beneficiary of circumstance remains to be seen, but Mourinho deserves credit for trusting the youngster enough to use him in the first team.

The bigger test will come in how McTominay develops under his guidance though. Perhaps then Mourinho can start actually claiming some of his facts are truths.