Aston Villa boss Dean Smith: Remarkable John McGinn is getting back to his best after injury
Dean Smith has saluted John McGinn’s “remarkable” spirit and reckons the midfielder is now almost back to his best after recovering from injury.
McGinn will line-up for high-flying Villa against Southampton on Sunday, the same fixture in which he suffered a broken ankle last December.
After three months out, the Scotland international then endured a setback due to a shin injury just when he appeared set to return.
Yet despite having barely trained for six months by the time the Premier League returned in June, McGinn still featured prominently to help Villa avoid relegation by a single point and has started this season in impressive fashion.
Smith said: "It just shows how remarkable it was John started nine out of 10 of the remaining games of the season.
"John knew he wasn't 100 per cent, but we felt it was a risk worth taking, there was only one way to get him back to 100 per cent and that was playing. He managed to do that and was involved in keeping us in the league.
“Now he is certainly getting back to his best and we’ve seen some of that in his performances already.”
McGinn was scheduled to make his return from the ankle injury Villa’s home match against Chelsea in March.
But the fixture never took place due to the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic, with McGinn then learning he had a stress fracture in his shin.
“He was very low,” recalls Smith. “All that hard work he put in to get back fit, he was back to the start again.
"People remembered John from before the injury, and (when he first came back) he wasn't quite the same, but we expected that.
"I'm guessing fans hadn't seen he'd had a setback during lockdown as it wasn't publicised.
"When he didn't play as well as he could do, he worked on his fitness, he's a strong character around the place, one of the strongest we've got.
"He knew he was getting better, he was trying to make runs like he did before with and disappointed when he wasn't up to that level at times.
"But he knew that was part of the process of trying to get to that level. We are seeing now what a good player is, for Villa and Scotland.”
In addition to playing in a Villa team who have won four of their first five Premier League matches, McGinn also captained his country for the first time during the recent international break.
Smith added: “People forget he has been away on international duty and played three games, including 120 minutes in the play-off win for Scotland.
“In the short period of time since the season started he has experienced an awful lot.”
