McGinn: We knew Leeds were weak
JOHN McGinn has revealed Villa targeted Leeds’ problems defending set-pieces during their victory at Elland Road.
The midfielder admitted he thought Anwar El Ghazi’s fifth-minute winner might be ruled out and also praised the display of Ahmed Elmohamady, who is standing in for the injured Matty Cash.
Indeed, McGinn felt the 33-year-old acquitted himself well against Raphinha.
All of which left the Scot looking forward to a positive end to the campaign as Villa moved to within six points of fourth-placed West Ham with two games in hand.
“I thought it (the goal) was offside,” McGinn admitted. “I didn’t celebrate it much but it was a great ball from Ollie (Watkins), we knew Leeds were weak on set-pieces, we worked on that all week, and it was a great finish. It is good to see him with another goal.”
Confidence was particularly high after another clean sheet.
“Emi (Martinez) has been fantastic all season so has the whole back four,’’ continued McGinn. “A big shout out to Elmo, Cashy has been a different class this season but Elmo came in against one of the best players in the league and was excellent. Full credit to everyone for the clean sheet and another big result.
“They came to Villa Park and put three past us so we had to put it right. We got a goal early on and what we showed was grit, determination and desire.
“We’ve got it in us to make this a special season, a few bad performances in the last few weeks, everyone has been involved in that. But here it was about rolling our sleeves up, Anwar showing a bit of quality in the first half and after that it was just flinging bodies on the line and doing anything it took to get the three points. And thankfully we did that.”
Villa’s £22 million striker Wesley is edging ever closer to a return to action - and could be available for selection after the international break.
The Brazilian has been out for 14 long and painful months since rupturing his anterior cruciate ligament during a challenge by Burnley’s Ben
Mee at Turf Moor in January 2020. Wesley’s finally back in full-contact training at Bodymoor Heath and has participated in small-sided games alongside his teammates.
Head coach Dean Smith said: “It has been a long, hard road back for him. We expected that such was the extent of the injury. But it was good to see for everyone he was involved.”
ST Andrew’s isn’t the happiest of places right now. Despite the respite of Saturday’s 2-1 victory over Queens Park Rangers, Blues lie just outside the bottom three of the Championship having played more games than the two teams below them.
The pressure is very much on Aitor Karanka to get positive results to move the club away from the relegation trap door.
However, while it is easy for fans to identify the Spaniard for criticism over matters on the field, off the field the situation is much more unclear. Although CEO Xuandong Ren is very much the face of the Blues’ hierarchy to fans, the fact remains he is not actually the big boss at Birmingham City.
And while it’s Ren who announced the appointment of Karanka, and who proudly proclaimed a partnership with the head coach at his presentation, it is unclear if his confidence is enough for the former Middlesbrough and Nottingham Forest boss.
While Ren works in the chairman’s office at the Wast Hills training ground, it’s not his name on the door or indeed his picture on the wall. That honour goes to Wenqing Zhao, who doubles as director of Birmingham City and chairman of the board of Hong Kong parent company Birmingham Sports Holdings.
Although normally based in China, the coronavirus pandemic has ensured Zhao has been in Birmingham for the last 14 months. Now living in the local area, the unassuming 54-year-old is present for most games and will have seen with his own eyes the performances on the pitch this season.
Zhao’s role had been one in the background, content to work in the Far East for the owners of the club rather than be in the rough and tumble of the day-to-day running of Blues.
The Birmingham Sports Holdings chairman is the man the owners have given the responsibility to for looking after projects, other than the club, that the Hong Kong-listed company runs. He is a director of various subsidiaries connected to the lottery software company that BSH owns, as well as the Chinese arm of their Japanese medical tourism project.
Zhao also has connections to Vong Pech, who recently bought a 21.64 per cent stake in the club via his British Virgin Islands investment vehicle Oriental Rainbow Investments. The two of them are fellow directors of a bank in Vong’s native Cambodia and have worked with each other for some time there.
Despite his prior distance from the club, Zhao has recently found his name increasingly mentioned online by Blues’ fans unhappy with the performance of the team, the manager and the CEO.
Unlike Ren, Zhao has no presence on social media and has given no interviews to any members of the press, either here or in Hong Kong.
As such, it’s very difficult to understand his thinking with respect to the club, which makes predicting his actions almost impossible.
There are other complications too. As someone belonging to a generation older than his fellow directors at the club, Zhao is treated with respect and reverence by the younger members of the board, as is the norm in Chinese culture.
For example, despite his lofty title of chief executive officer, Ren knows his place in the hierarchy. He, along with fellow directors Edward Zheng and Shayne Yao, will all want to be seen by Zhao as faithful, loyal and competent.
Indeed, Zhao has resorted to watching games alone recently in order to come to his own conclusions about the team’s performance on the pitch.
With Ren’s pick for Blues boss, Karanka, struggling to build any kind of form with the team, the pressure to achieve on the field may also start to fall on the CEO as well.
Yet while this game plays out in the boardroom, the team is struggling for victory in games on the pitch.
With the season starting to come to a conclusion and relegation now a very real possibility for Blues, the time is coming where Zhao may have to step out of the shadows to change things.
When that will happen is something maybe only he knows.
You can read more of Daniel Ivery’s incisive analysis at www.almajir.net and can follow him on Twitter at @ almajir.