An offer McTominay and Gilmour couldn't refuse

No city worships its footballing heroes quite like Naples. From the moment you step foot in Europe’s largest one-club city, the legacy of those who have pulled on the Azzurri blue stares you in the face.

Murals of players past and present scatter the walls of the old town. Blue shirts, scarves and flags are draped from windows and across narrow streets.

The greatest adopted Neapolitan of all, Diego Maradona, smiles back at you at seemingly every turn, while a full piazza in the Spanish Quarter has been dedicated to his memory.

Winning here means immortality. Not just for legends like Diego, but for any who contribute to the club’s sporadic, but always spectacular, moments of success.

Neapolitans nourish themselves as much on their football team as on the unrivalled fare produced in their pizzerias.

As a player, there are few places more challenging or more rewarding to compete. And if you’re lucky, you might even get a pizza named after you too.

Scott McTominay and Billy Gilmour have only had the most fleeting taste of all this since the two Scots simultaneously swapped the Premier League for the Bay of Naples ahead of the transfer deadline. But even that will have left them both in little doubt about the excitement and expectation that awaits them.

McTominay’s arrival captured more attention, being the better-known of the two thanks to his long stint at Manchester United.

When he touched down in southern Italy, the midfielder was greeted at the airport by hundreds of boisterous fans. After giving them a grin and a ‘Forza Napoli’, the door slammed shut on McTominay’s car, leaving him puffing out his cheeks and simply saying: ‘Wild, that. Wow.’

Gilmour walked through a corridor of pyrotechnics to be introduced to the Napoli fans before their 2-1 win over Parma ahead of the international break, after explaining how his former Brighton boss Roberto De Zerbi told him: ‘Napoli is crazy, like me. You will enjoy it.’

He also spoke of his desire to get the move done and seize the chance to work with Antonio Conte, who he has a picture with from when he first moved to Chelsea as a 16-year-old while the Italian was in charge. ‘He’s a serial winner, loves winning trophies,’ Gilmour said.

Both players’ apparent eagerness to represent Napoli and work under Conte has been well received in Italy, and their exploits during the international break didn’t go unnoticed either.

The front page of Napoli-based newspaper Il Mattino on Tuesday featured a photograph of McTominay scoring against Portugal with the headline: ‘Scott makes Napoli dream.’

Corriere dello Sport described the new ‘Napoli di Scozia’, writing that Gilmour and McTominay ‘will bring adrenaline, muscles, running, intensity, professionalism and passion.’

The pair’s decision to fly directly back to Naples on the night of the Portugal defeat also left the locals impressed.

If McTominay’s reputation, £25.7million transfer fee and prolific form for Scotland wasn’t enough to send expectations spiralling skywards, an interview with Napoli legend Marek Hamsik on Thursday was.

The Slovakian, Napoli’s top appearance holder and third-highest scorer of all time, was asked if McTominay can be his heir in Naples.

‘Yes, he could be,’ Hamsik said. ‘He’s an attacking midfielder who loves to get in the box and score goals, like me.

‘Let’s see, it depends on Conte’s system. But he is a big name, he showed that with United and for his national team.’

Hamsik touched on what has been a big talking point — whether Conte will tinker with his formation to accommodate his new signings.

So far, the former Chelsea and Tottenham boss has deployed a 3-4-2-1 formation with Stanislav Lobotka and Frank Anguissa as the starting midfield partnership.

Both were guilty last season, along with much of the squad, of looking a shadow of the players who won the title a year earlier.

But they have a lot of credit in the bank and will be hard for Gilmour and McTominay to supplant, unless, as suggested by Conte’s former assistant Angelo Alessio, a tweak is made.

‘I think after the final moves in the transfer market Conte is thinking of moving to a 3-5-2, even if the principles of the 3-4-2-1 will remain the same,’ Alessio said.

‘McTominay can easily work in that system and give them another midfielder... I think one of Gilmour and McTominay will be a starter.’

One recurring theme in the media is the expectation that McTominay will bring goals from midfield.

You can understand why; last season was his most prolific ever for United, as he hit 10 goals in 43 games, while his form for Scotland is frankly silly now, with 10 goals in his last 17 caps.

A threat from midfield was painfully lacking for Napoli last season as their Scudetto defence collapsed in embarrassing fashion with an eventual 10th-place finish.

Piotr Zielinski was their highest-scoring central midfielder in 2023/24 with four goals in all competitions. The Pole has since joined Inter on a free transfer, while the current pair of Anguissa and Lobotka mustered just one goal between them.

The pressure is on, then, for McTominay to deliver in the final third, even if goalscoring has only relatively recently become a big characteristic of his game: between 2018 and 2022, McTominay scored just once for Scotland in 37 caps, and last term was the only campaign he hit double figures while at Old Trafford.

For now, Conte (right) is keeping his cards close to his chest about what he intends to do with his new options in the centre of the park.

Asked about Gilmour and McTominay in a press conference ahead of Sunday’s trip to Cagliari, he said: ‘They’ve made a great impression. They are two serious guys, I got to know them well as opponents from my experience in the Premier League, but they can raise the level and bring competition for places.’

Conte has every reason to be satisfied with his options now, but he has had a tumultuous start since joining the club at the end of last season.

Although his 100th day as head coach has just passed, there is a feeling that the dust thrown up by a chaotic summer is only now settling in Naples.

The transfer window was overshadowed by the Victor Osimhen saga. Napoli’s star striker and hero of the 2023 Scudetto was frozen out of the squad by Conte as he tried to force a move to Chelsea or Saudi Arabia that never materialised, until he was eventually cornered into joining Galatasaray on loan after the deadline in the top five leagues had passed.

The futures of superstar winger Khvicha Kvaratskhelia and captain Giovanni Di Lorenzo were also in doubt at times during a summer laced with tension, and a humiliating 3-0 drubbing against Hellas Verona on the opening day of the Serie A season hardly calmed the waters.

But after Di Lorenzo and Kvaratskhelia re-committed to the cause and the market closed with an impressive string of seven new signings in the door — including McTominay’s former team-mate Romelu Lukaku — optimism returned, helped by back-to-back wins against Bologna and Parma in the wake of that early shock in Verona.

Now, the mood music is positively upbeat. Club president Aurelio De Laurentiis this week took the landmark of his 20th anniversary as owner as a chance to re-establish his lofty ambitions.

‘Napoli isn’t a stepping stone but a point of arrival,’ he said.

‘We launch new champions, it is true, but established ones want to come here. One of the best coaches in the world strongly wanted Napoli.’

That definition is hard to argue with. Conte is a four-time Serie A winner from his spells with Juventus and Inter, and there is confidence in Naples that the club’s failure to qualify for Europe last season could be a blessing in disguise, giving them the rest and preparation required for a title tilt.

Sunday in Sardinia offers the chance not only for Gilmour and McTominay to make their debuts, but for Napoli to win a third league game in a row for the first time since February 2023.

Should they do so, the Scots can start to believe that they have arrived at the start of another memorable chapter in the wild and wonderful history of their football-mad new home.