Aston Villa journalist Mat Kendrick has been sharing his thoughts on Villa midfielder John McGinn and his recent run of form for the Birmingham club.
This comes after Kendrick made an appearance on a recent episode of the Birmingham Mail’s Claret & Blue Podcast where he reflected on the club’s recent 2-0 defeat against Tottenham Hotspur at Villa Park.
On the subject of McGinn, who played the entire game against Jose Mourinho’s side, and his recent run of form, Kendrick had this to say on the matter. (8.41)
He said: “If you think about John McGinn, at the start of last season, he was probably Villa’s brightest player for a month or six weeks and then even before he got injured around Christmas time against Southampton, there were already signs that McGinn was creaking before he got injured.
“I don’t think we’ve seen McGinn at his best since the early weeks of the Premier League season. That’s not to say he’s been as poor as he seems to have been in recent weeks. I’m not sure what it is, he’s certainly lost a bit of his zip.”
Villa signed McGinn back in August 2018 from Scottish side Hibernian for a fee of £2.79 million. Since then, the 26-year-old, who is currently valued at £25.2 million, has made 101 appearances for Dean Smith’s side in which he has managed to score 11 goals and provide 18 assists along the way (per Transfermarkt).
TIF Thoughts on Mat Kendrick’s comments on McGinn…
Given how the midfielder earned himself a fairly underwhelming match rating of 6.27/10, making him the seventh-highest rated Villa player on the day against Spurs, this shows that not only did McGinn have a disappointing match but the team overall weren’t at their best either.
Do you think John McGinn needs a rest?
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Taking into account Kendrick’s comments and how McGinn has played 90 minutes in all but one of Villa’s Premier League games so far this season but hasn’t managed to register a goal or assist since December, perhaps this apparent drop in form that Kendrick spoke about could be due to the number of minutes he’s played this season.
In our view, perhaps a break out of the team for McGinn could be beneficial for the midfielder in the long run with just 10 league games left for Villa to play this season.