View: Aston Villa need to stop limiting John McGinn
Aston Villa star John McGinn is an incredibly likeable figure, but Villa are limiting him with their current system.
The Scottish international arrived at Villa Park in 2018 for a bargain £2.75million fee and has cemented himself as one of Villa’s star men.
A stat emerged from LiveScore on Sunday morning (26 June) that McGinn was the only player in Europe’s top five leagues to make over 100 tackles and create 50 chances last season.
While this is an impressive stat and shows McGinn’s importance and quality, it also highlights the issue with how Villa are using him.
He is an incredibly talented box-to-box player, but he cannot be expected to cover the back four and affect the play further up the pitch at the same time.
A brighter future
For an idea of how McGinn can be used more effectively, just look at how he plays for the Scottish national team.
Steve Clarke does not ask him to do as much defensive work and gets far more out of him as a result.
McGinn has hit 14 goals in his 48 caps for Scotland, including six in his last 19 appearances giving him a near one in three strike rate.
That is the sort of strike rate you would expect to see from Scotland’s striker, let alone their midfielder.
For Villa, fans are often critical of how many long balls McGinn plays, but the role he plays often means he can do little else.
If Villa can manage to unshackle him from his defensive duties and let him get forward, he can have the same effect in the Premier League.
Thankfully, Villa’s recent transfer activity suggests this could happen with Boubacar Kamara coming in to cover the back four.
Freeing McGinn up to contribute to the attack would give Villa much more of an attacking threat and Steven Gerrard should consider it ahead of next season.
In other Aston Villa news, outgoing midfielder Conor Hourihane has been left in limbo following Wayne Rooney’s exit from Derby County.