‘He has the snout’ - Erik ten Hag gives Scott McTominay strange praise after Man Utd win v Chelsea

Erik ten Hag gave Scott McTominay a strange compliment after Manchester United’s win over Chelsea and claimed the midfielder has a ‘snout’.

The Dutchman was referencing McTominay’s ability to sniff out goals and claimed he has the ‘smell’ of when to arrive in the box. The 26-year-old made several well-timed runs into the area on Wednesday, and scored both goals in the 2-1 victory against Chelsea.

That brings McTominay’s tally for the season up to five from 12 Premier League games, and he’s now the club’s outright top scorer. It’s been quite a turnaround for a man that could have left Old Trafford last summer, and his goals alone have earned United eight league points this term.

His recent goalscoring exploits have not been limited to club football and thrived in Euro 2024 qualifying, with seven goals in eight Scotland appearances, numbers only Romelu Lukaku, Cristiano Ronaldo, Kylian Mbappe and Harry Kane could beat.

After such an impressive vein of form in front of goal, Ten Hag was quick to praise the player after the Chelsea game. “He has the skills and, when he is arriving and he has the skills to arrive there in the right moment. He has the snout,” said the United boss.

“And then he has a very good finish. But talking about dynamics, sometimes he is deep and sometimes he is lower. But in our tactics, in our planning, our game plan is often that we want him to be high.

“So the team has to to make it happen, that he can come high, that he can come into positions where is around a striker and then he can make a run. And as I said, he has a very good smell when to arrive. And then he has also very good finish. And then the team has to make sure that we bring the ball with him.”