When Lewis Ferguson was named Serie A’s best midfielder last season, he became the first Scot in history to scoop up the Bulgarelli No 8 Award, a prize with particular significance for the Bologna captain as it is named after the late club legend Giacomo Bulgarelli.

Twelve months on, one of Ferguson’s compatriots has made a strong case for the accolade to be passed from one Scot to another.

Scott McTominay continued his spectacular debut campaign in Italy with his first Serie A brace on Monday night, scoring twice as Napoli thrashed Empoli 3-0 at the Stadio Diego Armando Maradona to remain within three points of league leaders Inter Milan.

Having gone six games without a goal, the 28-year-old opened the scoring in fine fashion 18 minutes into the game, when he received a pass from Romelu Lukaku and galloped forward from midfield, before sweeping the ball past Empoli goalkeeper Devis Vásquez.

The pair combined again halfway through the second half, when Lukaku’s perfectly-weighted cross found McTominay in the box, with the Scot planting a powerful header into the back of the net via the underside of the bar.

The Scotland midfielder could have had a hat-trick just minutes later when he was played through by Lukaku only for his right-footed effort to crash against the post.

So dominant was McTominay’s performance that La Gazzetta dello Sport named him their man of the match, with an 8/10 rating.

“He weaves through challenges and bursts forward, orchestrates the attack, and drives into the box. He’s the undisputed king of the midfield, still utterly dominant,”  read the verdict.

“They should clone him.”

And you suspect that if Antonio Conte could clone McTominay, he would. The Scot has been a revelation in his first season in Serie A following a £27.5m (€30.5m) move from Manchester United in the summer.

With eight goals McTominay is Napoli’s top-scorer behind Lukaku, he sits second in shots per game and first in duels won per game with 2.32 and 5.93 respectively.

So significant has been the Scot’s impact that Conte even abandoned his preferred 3-5-2 to accommodate McTominay in the team, swapping to a four-man defence for the 0-0 draw against Juventus in October and never looking back.

“There have certainly been changes since the beginning of the summer, especially as I am still trying to find the right tactics for this team,” Conte told DAZN in February.

“The arrival of Scott McTominay and Romelu Lukaku, in particular, made a big difference to the switch to 4-3-3. We tried a couple of different formations before we settled on this one.”

And while McTominay has brought a new energy to Napoli’s midfield, slotting in seamlessly alongside Stanislav Lobotka and Frank Zambo Anguissa, it’s his contribution in front of goal that has dominated the conversation.

“Scott is a player who has goals in his blood,” Conte said of McTominay in October. “A footballer who has goals in his DNA.”

With eight goals in Serie A, this is already the highest-scoring league season in McTominay’s career. Crucially, it’s also the same amount of goals scored by Bruno Fernandes this season, the only member of Ruben Amorim’s squad on a par with the Scot.

McTominay made over 250 appearances for United, but the club opted to sell him in the summer as the fee received from Napoli could be booked as a pure profit owing to his status as an academy graduate.

‘When I got into the first team, I was quite misprofiled in where I was playing,’ McTominay told The Athletic earlier this month.

‘It wasn’t the fault of any coaches. My strengths have always been getting into the box, scoring goals, being a problem in there. But I was being used as a No 6, or as a centre-back, and that has never really been my game.’

United’s loss has very much been Napoli’s gain.

When Conte demanded signings following his team’s 3-0 capitulation against Verona on the opening day of the season, McTominay arrived in Naples along with Lukaku, who joined from Chelsea for £25m. And the pair have proved crucial to Napoli’s title challenge.

Lukaku’s goal against Empoli was the 12th of his campaign, a tally bettered only by Mateo Retegui, Moise Kean, Marcus Thuram and Ademola Lookman, and his 10 assists are the joint-most in Serie A alongside Christian Pulisic.

Crucially, his partnership with McTominay has flourished.

“Romelu is a great teammate. He demands a lot from all the team and me to score more goals and create more opportunities for him to score as well,” McTominay told DAZN after the game.

“He’s obviously a great player. He’s had a great career, and we’re so happy to have him.”

Napoli can say the same about McTominay.