Scott McTominay collected the ball thirty yards from goal, took one touch, and bent a low right-foot drive past Pierluigi Gollini into the far corner. The 83rd-minute strike was the kind of goal Manchester United fans spent years waiting for and rarely saw.

It was his second of the night. Six minutes later, it did not matter. Leonardo Balerdi met a Wesley cross with his head and hauled Roma level at 3-3, his second of the match and the goal that kept Gian Piero Gasperini’s side unbeaten in Serie A.

André-Frank Zambo Anguissa had opened the scoring with an acrobatic bicycle-kick finish on 28 minutes before McTominay doubled the lead early in the second half with a header from a Matteo Politano cross. Matías Soulé pulled one back on 69, Balerdi equalised five minutes later, and McTominay’s long-range strike looked like the final word until it wasn’t.

From United afterthought to Napoli talisman

McTominay joined Napoli from Manchester United on 30 August 2024 in a deal worth £25m with add-ons, ending a long association with the club he first walked into as a boy. Twelve goals and four assists in his debut Serie A season helped Napoli win the Scudetto on the final day, and the Italian league voted him its overall MVP for 2024-25.

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The transformation has not slowed under Massimiliano Allegri, who replaced Antonio Conte in July. McTominay had gone goalless this season until a brace against Bodo/Glimt in the Champions League in midweek, and his two against Roma were his first Serie A goals of the campaign.

Roma rescue a point they feared they had lost

Allegri was not inclined to pick apart what his team had done.

“I have no complaints about my team. They played a great match, defensively too, against a very strong Roma side,” he said after the final whistle, according to NST.

Gasperini saw the point as damage repaired rather than earned. His substitutes turned the game, he said, and the dressing room walked out with its morale intact. Roma remain unbeaten, in third and four points behind Lazio, who moved top of Serie A over the weekend.

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Napoli dropped to ninth, eleven points off the summit after nine matchdays. Allegri’s side travel to Monza on Wednesday, 28 October.

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