Dean Smith has heaped praise on summer signing John McGinn after Aston Villa’s huge 3-0 win at Derby on Saturday.
McGinn played a blinder and scored the first goal of the game in the 74th minute.
His goals were followed by one from Tammy Abraham and a third from Conor Hourihane and the win takes Smith’s side to 11th in the table.
“John has been outstanding,” Smith said in the Express & Star after the game. “I can only talk about since I have been here but he is a better player than I could have dreamed of.
“He has energy and quality, bundles of it. We are very fortunate to have him.”
OPINION
Celtic really wanted McGinn over the summer but lost out to Aston Villa and they must be regretting trying to get him on the cheap now. In the end, Steve Bruce paid £2.8million to bring him south of the border from Hibs in August and he’s turning out to be one of the buys of the summer in the Championship. This was his second goal of the season but it’s his all-round performances that have impressed so much. There could be even more to come though as well, after he revealed that new manager Smith has been encouraging him to get forward more and make more runs into the opposition box. Smith thinks that McGinn can score even more goals and if he adds that to his game too he could be the standout Villa player this season. As it is he could have just kick-started a real run back into the play-off positions for his side, against a team that will definitely be vying for promotion themselves.