McTominay returns to action for Napoli after heart surgery

Scott McTominay is back on the pitch. After forty-one days out, his last appearance had come on August 30, the Scottish midfielder was named in Massimiliano Allegri's squad for Napoli-Frosinone and got his first minutes back since the September 8 procedure to correct a cardiac arrhythmia.

Allegri threw him into the game in the 61st minute, replacing Neres, with Napoli already 2-0 up: half an hour, according to Tuttosport's player ratings (6.5), played amid the roar of the Maradona crowd on his return from a problem that had kept him out for more than a month. The Scot also created a chance in the 73rd minute, with a powerful shot against the near post that Frosinone goalkeeper Palmisani parried for a corner.

For those who have him on their Fantacalcio Rainbow roster, the main news is that the fitness-clearance issue is behind him: McTominay is available again, and Allegri chose him as his first option off the bench, in a midfield currently built around Lobotka as the fixed starter and Gilmour as the main alternative. He remains a player to handle with care, though: thirty-three minutes after more than a month of inactivity are not enough to call him ready for a start, and Napoli have a packed schedule ahead, with Villarreal in the Champions League on Tuesday and Venezia next Saturday.

In the 21-30 price bracket, where McTominay sits, a high rating is worth +1: his season balance, frozen since the injury, stands at -1, with the last movement of -1 recorded at matchday four, before the layoff. Now that he is available again, the question for whoever drafted him is how quickly Allegri will give him minutes back: in the same role Napoli can also call on De Bruyne, Politano and Anguissa, so McTominay will almost certainly start from the bench again over the coming matchdays, more useful as a reliable substitute than as an immediate starting option.

Whoever has him on the roster can start treating him as a bench option for the next two or three matches, while waiting to see whether Allegri restores him to the starting eleven before the November break. The cardiac arrhythmia that sidelined him called for caution rather than a standard muscle-injury recovery timeline: that is why a gradual return, in growing chunks of minutes, is the likelier path over the coming matchdays, ahead of any eventual return to the starting lineup.