McTominay at home in Napoli as he leads title bid

City has embraced Scotland midfielder and not just because of his habit of scoring late decisive goals

- Nicky Bandini

Scott McTominay could have said anything and a whole city would still have loved him: the man who fired Napoli clear at the top of Serie A with four games to go inspired a 2-0 win over Torino on Sunday. He had scored the only goal as Napoli won away to Monza in their previous fixture, and two out of three in a rout of Empoli before that.

Carrying his team towards the finish line, in other words, though McTominay has been decisive from the start. He scored within 28 seconds of coming off the bench for his home debut in September and his goals have broken seven 0-0 deadlocks since then. No player in Serie A has done this more.

If it is too soon to call McTominay the "Uomo Scudetto" - Player of a Title-Winning Season - it is because the prize is not Napoli's yet. They hold a three-point lead after Inter lost 1-0 to Roma on Sunday. Their remaining opponents are in the bottom half of the table, though that may be a double-edged sword, with Lecce, Parma and Cagliari still fighting to avoid relegation.

Perhaps there are some people in Naples who would not name McTominay even if the race was over. But only because they find his name hard to pronounce. Fortunately, Neapolitans are expert in creating sobriquets for closest friends and greatest heroes.

At full time on Sunday, a DAZN interviewer asked him which nickname was his favourite: "MacGyver, McTerminator, McFratm, or Apribottiglie [The Bottle Opener], because you always score the first goal?"

McTominay started laughing before the question was finished. "Pasquale Mazzocchi [his teammate] would say McFratm," he said, dissolving to giggles.