John McGinn

[JAMAICAN-VILLAN]

As a fan on one of the Villa channels said "McGinn was off his game today, he won't be off his game again on Tuesday, WBA will need to be at their best to match us".

As I said in the Mings thread, I think they were all a bit nervy.

Now the duck is broken, I fully expect them to be in better flow from here on out.

[mikeyp102]

Agreed that it wasn’t his best game, just couldn’t get on the ball and drive the team forward as he normally does. Having said that, he still did very little wrong.

[PaulC]

He tried but no space for him to play with. will be different at the hawthorns.  He hasn't got the silky skill of Grealish to cope with the lack of space. 

[AVTuco]

17 hours ago, JAMAICAN-VILLAN said:

As a fan on one of the Villa channels said "McGinn was off his game today, he won't be off his game again on Tuesday, WBA will need to be at their best to match us".

As I said in the Mings thread, I think they were all a bit nervy.

Now the duck is broken, I fully expect them to be in better flow from here on out.

Exactly what I've been thinking. We beat them clearly with those two playing sub-par. We're in a very good place now.

Tuesday will be a game for McGinn. He'll take them apart on the counter.

[Zatman]

Did he sleep with Chris Brunt wife or something, can see know other reason why he was violently targeting him all game

Edited May 14, 2019 by Zatman

[Jareth]

The pundits said how good he was over both legs - made me think he must be incredible cos he seemed subdued compared to normal standards. 

[bannedfromHandV]

Yep, I was thinking his batteries finally seem to be dying!

Maybe just needs the rest 

[jackbauer24]

His worst two games in a Villa shirt in my opinion. Hope it's a blip rather than the inability to handle pressure.

[Jareth]

Just now, jackbauer24 said:

His worst two games in a Villa shirt in my opinion. Hope it's a blip rather than the inability to handle pressure.

It looked like he wasn't strong enough against bigger players - didn't mean he couldn't do important things like stealing the ball leading to the sending off, but it made me question how he'd fare in the prem.  

[jackbauer24]

12 minutes ago, Jareth said:

It looked like he wasn't strong enough against bigger players - didn't mean he couldn't do important things like stealing the ball leading to the sending off, but it made me question how he'd fare in the prem.  

I don't think it was that though, he's played against other physical big players and been more than a match. But his decision making, distribution and even dribbling we're all far below his normal standards. He's not alone obviously, a lot of them seemed to freeze in last few games.

[Farlz]

Much better tonight than on Saturday, was really trying to push us on.

Think like Jack now his standards are just so high it's a bit of a shock when he doesn't have a great game. 

[Guest av1]

I think the probably recently is that he is playing far to high up the pitch. His game is all about busting forward runs, you can't do that if your sat right up on the back 4. 

[Wezbid]

As Farlz suggested, I think his general standard is so high that anything other than damn good stands out. His energy to set up Davis in the last few minutes of extra time was insane. The guy is probably just absolutely worn out with the amount of work he gets through. Thankfully a good rest is available to him for the final. 

I know he plays similar minutes to the rest of the team but I've not seen anything like him in terms of energy exerted since Milner. It's easy to take it for granted after a while. 

[Tomaszk]

Led the celebrations over to the fans. I love this man and he loves us.

Something about the West Brom setup nullified him. He couldn't find space. Loves the channel between full back and centre half, and the back 5 probably clogged that up for him.

He was unreal in the game at pride park and is even more if a goal threat now.

MOTM at Wembley incoming.

[dont_do_it_doug.]

I thought McGinn was great last night. He got hacked to bits and he didn't see nearly enough of the ball for long periods, but when he did he was by far our most potent threat. 

Derby are tailor made for him. He will have space. This is his moment. 

[Lord Willard]

I thought he was quiet till about 60 mins. Then WBA tired and he started to find space again. 

[bannedfromHandV]

I think Albion had a plan for McGinn and it worked, noticed a few times that they didn't get touch tight with him when he was receiving the ball negating his ability to use the 'crab method' of rolling and turning a defender.

Coupled with that though there was definitely a slow down in his general play, hoping it was tiredness.

[MotoMkali]

Have mcginn as the holding midfielder and hourihane higher up. Worked really well against Bristol City. Plus mcginn can drive up the field and win free kicks

[villaglint]

On 15/05/2019 at 01:15, av1 said:

I think the probably recently is that he is playing far to high up the pitch. His game is all about busting forward runs, you can't do that if your sat right up on the back 4. 

Exactly that but it was obviously a key game plan of West Brom because its Jacks best ability too. Not so much the busting runs but more the ability to beat his man in midfield which then breaks the lines everywhere. 

Fair play to West Brom they identified our two biggest threats and did a lot to take them out of the game. To do that they had to concede territory and allow us to play both games in and around their box they put three CBs on Tammy and backed themselves to nullify the threat from crosses. 

It very nearly worked. 

In someways I would be amazed if Derby did the same because they are a very different side and have more attacking weapons than Baggies. However they might look at how effective it was and give it a good long ponder. 

 

[Guest av1]

16 minutes ago, villaglint said:

Exactly that but it was obviously a key game plan of West Brom because its Jacks best ability too. Not so much the busting runs but more the ability to beat his man in midfield which then breaks the lines everywhere. 

Fair play to West Brom they identified our two biggest threats and did a lot to take them out of the game. To do that they had to concede territory and allow us to play both games in and around their box they put three CBs on Tammy and backed themselves to nullify the threat from crosses. 

It very nearly worked. 

In someways I would be amazed if Derby did the same because they are a very different side and have more attacking weapons than Baggies. However they might look at how effective it was and give it a good long ponder. 

 

Though i would agree with all of that, for me it's not just the baggies games, the last 5/6 games he seems to be playing much higher up the pitch imo. 

The trouble with that is that as well limiting McGinns main strengths, it also mean that whoever is holding is practically on their own in the middle as Grealish plays high up the field aswell.