John McGinn dazzles for Aston Villa with what he did v Bologna
John McGinn stepped up to the plate for Aston Villa once again after his goal helped secure a 2-0 win against Bologna on Tuesday (22 October).
The Villans made it three wins from three in the Champions League with victory against the Serie A side, thanks to goals from the Scotland international and Jhon Duran.
It was the home side who created the better of the chances but took until the second half to open the scoring after a flurry of chances.
This win sent Villa top of the Champions League table, continuing the amazing rise under Unai Emery, with McGinn being the longest-serving player helping them to victory.
John McGinn steps up for Aston Villa against Bologna
The 30-year-old made his first start after recovering from an injury in Europe’s elite competition and showed the fans what they have been missing.
Steve Bruce signed the midfielder from Hibernian and he has gone on to score the Championship playoff-winning goal, Villa’s first back in the Premier League and now in the Champions League.
His rise has tied into that of Villa’s and has massively benefited from Emery coming in and that was on show against Bologna.
With that being said, the Spaniard would have been disappointed to see him register a pass accuracy of just 74 per cent across his 23 attempts with just three into the final third [FotMob].
That is slightly down on his average for Villa across the past 12 months of 79.2 per cent [FBref], ranking him in the bottom 28 percentile of midfielders across Europe’s top five leagues.
However, he utilised his 36 touches well and was able to get two shots off with a 100 per cent accuracy, troubling Lukasz Skorupski on multiple occasions.
The Scotland international helped out defensively as well as going forward, winning two duels, with his aerial duel success at 100 per cent on the night.
McGinn also got on the scoresheet with a cross-come-shot which drifted into the net as the ball evaded everyone inside the penalty area.
There wouldn’t have been a more popular goalscorer among the Villa Park faithful as Super John was rewarded for his years of service to the club.
In other Aston Villa, Jamie O’Hara made an “unbelievable” admission after the win against Bologna.
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