Scott McTominay's Contract Uncertainty and Health Concerns
Napoli sporting director Mauro Manna has laid bare the uncertainty surrounding Scott McTominay’s future, admitting contract talks with the midfielder are proving anything but straightforward.
McTominay is tied to the club until 2028, and both sides want to extend that agreement. That should make things simple. It hasn’t.
“McTominay’s contract renewal? Scott said he doesn’t know if he’ll renew at this time,” Manna told DAZN, cutting through the speculation with a blunt assessment. The message from the club is clear: they want him to stay. The player is open to it. The deal, though, is stuck in that familiar grey area of modern football negotiations.
“He has a two-year contract, we want to do it, and he wants to do it too. It’s not always easy to make things coincide, but we’re trying,” Manna said, underlining both intent and frustration in a few short lines.
Health scare and surgery in London
While the boardroom wrestles with figures and clauses, McTominay’s immediate battle is a medical one.
The 29-year-old has been diagnosed with a mild benign arrhythmia, an irregularity in the heart’s rhythm. Napoli moved quickly, sending him to London for a planned procedure designed to address the issue and limit disruption to their season.
Inside the club, there is confidence. The expectation is that McTominay will be back in full competitive action by mid-October, assuming his recovery follows the carefully mapped-out schedule.
McTominay has done his best to calm any rising anxiety among supporters. Speaking at a recent awards ceremony, he played down the alarm around his condition and stressed the operation was not a panicked response.
“I’m fine, the procedure was something I’d planned to do with the club for quite a while,” he said, framing it as a proactive step rather than a crisis.
Blow for Napoli and Scotland
The timing, though, is brutal.
McTominay has already missed Napoli’s chaotic 3-2 defeat to Inter Milan, a result that handed Massimiliano Allegri a second straight loss and sharpened the scrutiny on his side. Without their driving force in midfield, Napoli’s engine room has lost its organiser and its tempo-setter just as the calendar turns nasty.
Ahead lie clashes with Arsenal, Bologna, and Fiorentina. Those are games where experience, control, and personality in the middle of the pitch tend to decide outcomes. McTominay usually provides all three. His absence rips a sizeable hole in Allegri’s plans.
The damage stretches beyond club football. For Scotland, this is a hammer blow at the start of a new chapter.
McTominay, capped 73 times and central to the identity of the current Scotland side, will sit out four key Nations League fixtures against Slovenia, Switzerland, and North Macedonia. These are the first competitive matches of the Sebastien Pocognoli era, and the new head coach must do without the man who delivered the decisive goals that sealed a place at the 2026 World Cup.
Losing that kind of figure, both in terms of output and leadership, strips early momentum from Pocognoli’s reign before a ball has been kicked in anger.
A tightly controlled recovery
Behind the scenes, Napoli have built a meticulous recovery plan around their midfielder.
Manna outlined a strict timetable: the first two weeks after surgery will be devoted entirely to rest, allowing McTominay’s body to settle and heal. No shortcuts, no rush.
“It will take 28 days for sporting fitness because he will take anticoagulant drugs,” Manna explained. The medication dictates the pace. For a fortnight, McTominay will shut down completely. Only after that will he be allowed to resume competitive activity without contact, focusing on light training and conditioning.
The final hurdle—full-contact football—will come only after specialist clearance, once the medical team is satisfied that the heart issue and the impact of the drugs no longer pose a risk.
Napoli know they must balance two delicate fronts: securing the long-term commitment of a cornerstone player while protecting his long-term health. The next few weeks will shape both his contract and his comeback.
