ROARING TO GO AGAIN
McGinn wants to complete his recovery from injury woes by keeping Villa in top flight
LOCKDOWN has brought few obvious blessings but John McGinn believes the extended time out may just have enhanced Aston Villa’s chances of Premier League survival. Mentally, the Scotland midfielder senses a sharpened sense of focus and purpose among his team-mates as they gear up for Wednesday’s restart against Sheffield United.
Physically, he acknowledges the personal benefit of an extended rehabilitation and recovery from the ankle injury that sidelined him just before Christmas.
In common with all Premier League squads, Dean Smith’s group have been convening for carefully implemented training sessions at their Bodymoor Heath base outside Birmingham.
At first, sessions were conducted at a safe social distance but McGinn instantly felt a new closeness among a group that had been thrown together last summer.
‘I honestly think it has been good for us,’ says McGinn. ‘I played alongside Douglas Luiz for the first half of the season and he genuinely couldn’t understand a word I said.
‘I don’t know if he’s spent lockdown with his tutor but fair play to him because it helps so much that he can now understand “man on”! I don’t think they have that in Brazil…
‘There were a lot of players from different leagues and countries kind of flung together last year. Because of the money spent, people expected us to gel instantly.
‘It doesn’t work like that, especially in a league where you get punished for making mistakes.
‘The break has been good for us mentally, it has allowed us all to realise the situation we are in.
‘We now have 10 games to get ourselves out of it.
‘As I say to the boys, I am basically a foreigner, too. I am missing my family the same way they are, but we don’t want to be going to see them after being relegated. We are using things like that to spur us on.’
At the point football was placed in abeyance, McGinn was racing the clock to try and feature in Villa’s relegation run-in.
‘I had a few things in the back of my mind before lockdown,’ he admits. ‘We were in the relegation zone and there were the Scotland play-off games that could have been the biggest matches of my career.
‘We’d also qualified for the Carabao Cup final. So, things got speeded up a bit.
‘I was training when we heard the next day’s match at Chelsea was off. So, when training started back, it was a case of being realistic.
‘I came together with the medical department and we agreed we can’t rush this.
‘Even though the ankle is now healed, I’ve been out of football a long time. At first I was brought in and out of sessions, but I’ve been stepped up to 100
per cent now.’ A naturally robust athlete, McGinn admits he struggled to cope with the frustrations of being sidelined for so long.
Yet, when he does step back on to the field, no one should expect him to pick and choose his tackles.
‘Throughout my career I’d only ever been out for a maximum of six weeks, so this one has been tough,’ he admits. ‘It’s been strange having weekends free and the time has dragged. It does feel like years ago. I’m excited to get back in to doing what I’m used to.
‘The first part of the season, I was loving it. Every time I stepped out on to the pitch, I couldn’t believe I was playing in the Premier League and I treated each game that way.
‘That’s probably why I got injured but I don’t regret that.
‘If I start worrying about how I go into tackles or how I play, I won’t be playing in this league much longer. I’d be bitten up and spat out.’
By his own admission, he does most things in a hurry and it says much that his Premier League role model is Jamie Vardy and not a midfield string puller like David Silva.
As a youngster at St Mirren and then Hibernian, McGinn was never regarded as much of a goalscorer and was often deployed in a deeper role.
Yet since moving to Villa, he has progressively found himself playing higher up the pitch — and reaping the rewards as a result.
‘I just try to get in behind and run about daft,’ he says, self-mockingly. ‘Jamie Vardy has made a career out of being the complete opposite to a lot of Premier League No9s. He’s just an absolute nuisance.
‘I respected him as a player, but it wasn’t until I actually moved down here that I realised how annoying he was to play against.
‘No one likes that but he has progressed and kept doing it at such a high level. I know it’s a completely different position but, if I can be as much of a nuisance, that’s what I take from his game.’
In a previous conversation, McGinn described himself as a ‘rat and a runner’ but Villa fans will testify that there is much more to his game. Seven goals in his last six for Scotland would underline the point.
Manchester United have been linked with a move for the 25-year-old.
The price tag would be at least 10 times the £2.5million paid by Villa to Hibs in 2018.
‘I am at the best place to get better,’ he insists. ‘Down here, it’s just me and my girlfriend and that gives me the chance to work on my game more, spend more time at the training ground.’
Coronavirus has lessened the scope for extra-curricular training.
Protocols are in place from the moment his car approaches the gates at Bodymoor Heath until he leaves.
‘I feel safe going into work,’ he explains. ‘Parking is spaced out, we walk through and get our temperature tested every day and are tested twice a week for the virus. We have to avoid
unnecessary contact during breaks in play and use our own bottles during water breaks.
‘The Premier League have an official at every session to make sure we keep on top of everything.’
McGinn relishes playing in front of big crowds for club and country but is nonplussed by returning to action in an empty stadium.
Villa enjoy home advantage in six of their remaining 10 Premier League fixtures but won’t have their usual vocal crowd in to roar them on.
McGinn, whose elder brother Stephen was released by St Mirren earlier this month, is simply grateful to be back in action.
He adds: ‘Obviously everyone has their own opinion on that and mine is that nothing is normal now. We’ve all had to wake up and adapt to things... going to the shops, the chippy, anywhere.
‘Everything is different and it might be this way for a long time. If we fail, I’ll bet people will moan but it is about adapting. We will be going to St James’ Park and places like that with no crowd noises, so there are advantages, too.
‘We are lucky enough to be back playing games — my two brothers up the road would love to be playing behind closed doors. So I don’t have a problem with it. Everyone will agree that football is better with fans but at this moment in time it is just important we are keeping everyone as healthy as possible.
‘Our first game against Sheffield United will probably be one of the most watched games around, so we’ll still feel the intensity and pressure to perform.’
Signed by the Midlands club from Hibernian just a couple of years ago, McGinn quickly earned a legion of fans with his wholehearted and effective performances in the Championship.
This season, he has moved to a new level — as evidenced by that link to Old Trafford.
‘John is unique in that he is everything you want in an international player,’ says Scotland coach Steven Reid.
‘He is breaking forward, scoring goals and, on top of that, he is a great character in the dressing room.
‘In the last camp, he stepped up even more as we didn’t have a few of the senior boys. He is a Premier League footballer now and you can see that growth in him.
‘He is a nuisance, a pest really, and I like pests. I have played alongside a few and he is one who will never give you a moment’s breathing space.
‘Midfielders know he is going to be ratting around and you can’t switch off against him.
‘He has the ability, no two ways about that. You have seen the speculation that has surrounded him over the last year or so. I think that says it all.
‘His priority at the minute is going to be Aston Villa and trying to keep them in the Premier League.
‘His self-belief has gone on a massive upward trajectory over the last few years. He kicked on from where he left off in the Championship and that is a really tough ask.
‘The Premier League’s big teams would have been a little bit surprised by John McGinn and the energy he shows.’
‘THE BREAK HAS BEEN GOOD FOR US MENTALLY, TO SEE THE SITUATION WE ARE IN’