John McGinn of Aston Villa
John McGinn of Aston Villa
John McGinn has hailed the versatility in Aston Villa's ranks after Unai Emery was forced to shuffle the pack against Man City after Diego Carlos suffered an injury in training.
Villa beat the Premier League champions 2-1 at Villa Park after goals from Jhon Duran and Morgan Rogers either side of the break, before Phil Foden scored in the third of four minutes added on in the second period.
“Man City are one of the best teams in the world, reigning champions,” McGinn said on Villa TV. “They’ve been on a bad run of form, and we’ve not been at our best ourselves, so today it was a dangerous game. We had to be at our best, and we certainly were.
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“Football fans are very quick to jump on the back of teams when they’ve had a lot of success, you don’t just become a bad team overnight. They’re full of world class players, a team that everyone should respect, so we had to be on the ball every single second, every minute.
“Today was a mature performance. We listened to the gaffer’s game plan. Last night we were watching loads of clips of Man City. So, credit to the boys. We stuck to that game plan. It certainly was tiring those last five minutes. It was tough, but we managed to get over the line.”
McGinn added: “We had a lot of belief, I think. It was a little bit of a strange formation. The manager has stuck with a 4-4-2 for a couple of years now, but as Diego was carrying an injury it forced him to shuffle the pack. We’ve got a few versatile players.
“Myself, Morgan and Youri can shuffle around, and we managed to do that seamlessly. There was a lot of thinking going on in the game, a bit of a chess match, but that’s the way football is going. It’s about who focuses the longest, and thank goodness where was only four minutes added!”
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