DCJonah Posted December 15, 2021 Share Posted December 15, 2021 I think his game has gone up several levels since Gerrard has come in. He's so much more composed. Makes the right decisions and just dominates games. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stoobs Posted December 15, 2021 Visiting Supporter Share Posted December 15, 2021 SJM first ever trophy. Still get emotional watching this. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post Indigo Posted December 15, 2021 Popular Post Share Posted December 15, 2021 12 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
penguin Posted December 15, 2021 Share Posted December 15, 2021 Not sure if it's tailored to me but he appears to be trending on Twitter. Getting the recognition his performances of late have deserved. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Fun Factory Posted December 15, 2021 Share Posted December 15, 2021 Its probably either him or Luiz who will probably be the next ones to leave Villa. I hope they both stay but we know the footballing food chain. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dodgyknees Posted December 15, 2021 Share Posted December 15, 2021 7 hours ago, DCJonah said: I think his game has gone up several levels since Gerrard has come in. He's so much more composed. Makes the right decisions and just dominates games. This. He’s been sensational 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DJ_Villain Posted December 15, 2021 Share Posted December 15, 2021 4 minutes ago, The Fun Factory said: Its probably either him or Luiz who will probably be the next ones to leave Villa. I hope they both stay but we know the footballing food chain. I wouldn’t blame him and would only wish him well… Its not like he dreamt of playing for and captaining our club when he was growing up… Its his job at the end of the day… 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
osmark86 Posted December 15, 2021 Share Posted December 15, 2021 3 minutes ago, DJ_Villain said: I wouldn’t blame him and would only wish him well… Its not like he dreamt of playing for and captaining our club when he was growing up… Its his job at the end of the day… Yup same. I think he likes it at Villa though and we'd only sell for stupid sums. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WallisFrizz Posted December 15, 2021 Share Posted December 15, 2021 17 minutes ago, The Fun Factory said: Its probably either him or Luiz who will probably be the next ones to leave Villa. I hope they both stay but we know the footballing food chain. Well you picked your user name well. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dodgyknees Posted December 15, 2021 Share Posted December 15, 2021 5 minutes ago, WallisFrizz said: Well you picked your user name well. I don’t think he’s wrong. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JAMAICAN-VILLAN Posted December 15, 2021 Share Posted December 15, 2021 (edited) 35 minutes ago, The Fun Factory said: Its probably either him or Luiz who will probably be the next ones to leave Villa. I hope they both stay but we know the footballing food chain. Your user name must be an antonym. Edited December 15, 2021 by JAMAICAN-VILLAN Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JAMAICAN-VILLAN Posted December 15, 2021 Share Posted December 15, 2021 28 minutes ago, DJ_Villain said: I wouldn’t blame him and would only wish him well… Its not like he dreamt of playing for and captaining our club when he was growing up… Its his job at the end of the day… Might be naive, but I genuinely think McGinn loves us back. I'm not saying he wouldn't go, but I don't think it would be as easy to get him, as it would be certain of our other players. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Fun Factory Posted December 15, 2021 Share Posted December 15, 2021 If United come in with a massive bid in the summer he would be off. You just have to accept our place in the pecking order and the determination of the 'bigger' clubs to make sure we don't actually try and threaten them in the long run. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post astondalston Posted December 17, 2021 VT Supporter Popular Post Share Posted December 17, 2021 Great piece on our big arsed hero from the Telegraph... https://www.telegraph.co.uk/football/2021/12/17/john-mcginn-exclusive-interview-no-one-has-backsize-big-mine/?utm_content=football&utm_medium=Social&utm_campaign=Echobox&utm_source=Twitter#Echobox=1639756938 Quote John McGinn exclusive interview: No one has a backside as big as mine – but it makes me the player I am’Aston Villa midfielder has gone from horror leg injury, club rejection and being told his bottom was too big to shining for club and country BySam Wallace, CHIEF FOOTBALL WRITER 17 December 2021 • 3:36pm Just six years ago last summer, John McGinn was without a club and on an economy ticket from Glasgow to Houston via Newark to pursue what he hoped might be the revival of a stalling career in the second tier of the United States’ professional game, a world away from the Premier League. When we speak on a Zoom call this week, I ask the 27-year-old, now one of the Premier League’s leading midfielders and shortlisted for November’s player of the month, whether he knows which other British midfielder was heading west across the US that summer. McGinn, a football obsessive, answers immediately: it was his new manager Steven Gerrard, then off to join Los Angeles Galaxy. The great English midfielder of his era now finds himself in charge of McGinn at a resurgent Aston Villa, where Gerrard has put the Scot at the heart of his plans. The story of McGinn is different to the soaring trajectory of the playing career of his manager. At 17, McGinn could not get a game in St Mirren’s youth teams. In April 2015 his leg was speared by a training pole in an accident that left him “millimetres” from losing his career and possibly his life. He also looks very different to the typical modern-day player. “I don’t think anyone,” he reflects with a smile, “has a backside the size of mine.” Yet one should also point out that very few are currently delivering like McGinn. He is equal this season with Mohamed Salah and Lionel Messi for throughballs although his true effect is harder to measure in numbers. He is the heart and personality of Villa. “I love the person, the character, the player,” Gerrard has said of his No 7. Indeed, the first thing you notice about McGinn is his sense of humour and after that his acceptance of the serious business of making a career in the game. McGinn has a twin sister, Katie, a director at Morgan Stanley in Glasgow. It is his older brothers Stephen, 33, and Paul, 31, both professional footballers, whose career experiences shaped his ambition. When Stephen joined Watford in 2010, John would travel with their father, also Stephen, from their home in Clydebank to watch games. John can laugh now at his teenage fervour for the professional football scene. “The Watford players of the time may remember me because I hung around like a bad smell,” he says. “Adrian Mariappa, Danny Graham, Tom Cleverley, Lloyd Doyley. I was just in awe of them. I wanted to be them. I soaked up everything I could.” By the next year this promising “tricky wee winger” could not even get in the St Mirren youth team. He says he is reminded of that time when he goes to watch his young cousins play. He finds his eye drawn to the substitutes on the sidelines and the “kid sitting on the icebox” wistfully watching the game. “It takes you back,” he says. “Everyone wants to play and not everyone can play.” He did eventually reach the St Mirren first team and his greatest regret is the relegation of the 2014-2015 season when it hit home that each defeat added up to something bigger. “I played poorly, the whole team played poorly. That’s when the reality of football kicks in. You are responsible for relegation and people losing their jobs.” It was not helped by the distraction of the interest from English clubs and in particular Wigan Athletic which was where McGinn thought he was heading in the summer of 2015. “I used to Google their stadium and their training ground … it probably distracted me from getting better as a player and that was to the detriment of St Mirren and me.” By the summer he and his agent David Threlfall were assessing fewer options. A move to Houston Dynamo did not progress because of foreign player restrictions. Instead his career took off at Hibernian and by 2018 he was in demand. The connection with Celtic is strong – his grandfather Jack was a chairman of the club – but McGinn wanted to come to England. When he first arrived at Villa Park late one night, the club turned on the floodlights and took him to hospitality box No 7 where a shirt of the same number awaited with his name on it. “It never once even got to a stage where it was a 50-50 decision,” he says. “Aston Villa treated me like I was going to be their best-ever signing. They never gave me any choice. They pushed the boat out to make me feel wanted.” He was the scorer of the goal that won Villa the 2019 Championship play-off final. He was the returning post-lockdown saviour in their first Premier League survival season. McGinn has indeed been a wildly successful signing. But he jokes that his appearance is deceptive. “The Tyrone Mings six-pack,” he says, “is something I might never achieve”. His body is different but it has also been the making of him. “I don’t think anyone runs the way I do,” he says. “I don’t think anyone has a backside the size of me. The easy perception of me when I’m not playing well is, ‘Oh, he’s not athletic, he’s not mobile’. That couldn’t be further from the truth. I am as fit as I have ever been. I feel I am as quick as I have ever been. The body shape one is also a challenge I have had to overcome and something I do use to prove people wrong.” He listens to the sports scientists and many over his career have had a different view on what he might do. But understandably he is keen to keep what he calls “my unique style of play”. “I try to be different to the players in the league - and at the same time improve.” “There’s certainly a pressure from the outside that every footballer should be ripped to shreds. I have always been comfortable – until Aston Villa got Kappa as their shirt manufacturer, then it started to become more of a challenge! I would like to see some of the pundits who slag off my body try on a medium-size Kappa shirt. It certainly has its own challenges. I enjoy the physical side of the game. If I wasn’t athletic enough I don’t think I would be able to compete with these guys.” One manager from his past – whom he gallantly refuses to name – told him that his large backside would not hinder him in Scottish football but warned “you won’t get away with that in international football”. McGinn, now a five-year, 42-cap Scotland international, says the comment “just ate me alive for weeks”. “My dad said, ‘You tell him, King Kenny [Dalglish] and Mark Hughes used their backside every chance they got. So ignore that. Use it to your advantage The backside is a key factor, to the extent that McGinn says he can tell whether each opponent he faces has studied him by the way they try to play him. “In the tight spaces when someone comes close, I try to use it to my advantage and spin away.” Some know him well. Against his old St Mirren team-mate, Kenny McLean, McGinn once tried his classic tactic of backing in. The Norwich City midfielder stepped back and McGinn fell over. Neither could stop himself laughing. “We still speak about it to this day,” says McGinn. “Early in my career I used it every time I got the ball and it was no use because it was so obvious. Paul Pogba uses his body really well. Eden Hazard is the best of my era at using his backside. But they pick and choose. I have looked at how they use their bodies. It’s about having an uncertainty about your play. “The pundits talk about breaking the lines. You can do that in different ways: you can pass it through, you can dribble through, or you don’t even need to touch the ball. You can just get your body round it. Maybe not the easiest on the eye but it certainly opens up situations and if you do it properly you are running out the back, trying to slip a player in or have a shot.” Against Burnley on Saturday there will no doubt be more of the same. Villa are on a run of four wins from six under Gerrard and with the postponements a win could take them into seventh place. McGinn has his eye on European football next season. “I feel I can do it at Aston Villa with the structure we have in place,” he says. One final question: where did the famous nickname “Meatball” originate? McGinn sighs and smiles – it is another story “When I was a kid my mum used to get the razors out and try to cut our hair. I went for a number two all over. It didn’t look great and everyone decided my big head looked like a meatball. St Mirren fans used to have it in a song.” It has not caught on yet at Villa where he is known as “Ginny”, to great hilarity among his Scotland team-mates for whom, McGinn says, “Ginny” can only mean the variety of furry rodent pigs who make notably shy childhood pets. He laughs. He is, after all, a successful footballer comfortable in his own skin. 5 6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spiezels Posted December 17, 2021 Share Posted December 17, 2021 Mint Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Farlz Posted December 17, 2021 Share Posted December 17, 2021 (edited) Quote But he jokes that his appearance is deceptive. “The Tyrone Mings six-pack,” he says, “is something I might never achieve”. His body is different but it has also been the making of him. “I don’t think anyone runs the way I do,” he says. “I don’t think anyone has a backside the size of me. The easy perception of me when I’m not playing well is, ‘Oh, he’s not athletic, he’s not mobile’. That couldn’t be further from the truth. I am as fit as I have ever been. I feel I am as quick as I have ever been. The body shape one is also a challenge I have had to overcome and something I do use to prove people wrong.” He listens to the sports scientists and many over his career have had a different view on what he might do. But understandably he is keen to keep what he calls “my unique style of play”. “I try to be different to the players in the league - and at the same time improve.” “There’s certainly a pressure from the outside that every footballer should be ripped to shreds. I have always been comfortable – until Aston Villa got Kappa as their shirt manufacturer, then it started to become more of a challenge! I would like to see some of the pundits who slag off my body try on a medium-size Kappa shirt. It certainly has its own challenges. I enjoy the physical side of the game. If I wasn’t athletic enough I don’t think I would be able to compete with these guys.” Glad he mentioned this. The comments on him being overweight if he ever hit a bad run of form always annoyed me. Edited December 17, 2021 by Farlz 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Farlz Posted December 17, 2021 Share Posted December 17, 2021 Great interview though, he's been phenomenal since the arrival of Gerrard. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HalfTimePost Posted December 17, 2021 Share Posted December 17, 2021 I wish the interviewer dug a little into that 'European football next season' quote. Worried. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WallisFrizz Posted December 17, 2021 Share Posted December 17, 2021 41 minutes ago, HalfTimePost said: I wish the interviewer dug a little into that 'European football next season' quote. Worried. Yes, he “feels” he can do it with Villa. And if he can’t?? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lichfield Dean Posted December 17, 2021 VT Supporter Share Posted December 17, 2021 43 minutes ago, HalfTimePost said: I wish the interviewer dug a little into that 'European football next season' quote. Worried. It did come across a little bit as a veiled threat. But often these interviews get slightly lost in translation to the written word, so hopefully he didn't mean it as bluntly as "I want European football or I'm out of here" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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