John McGinn believes Aston Villa can get their Premier League season off to a winning start against Newcastle United on Saturday.
On the back of an unbeaten pre-season, the Villa captain is confident his team are well prepared for a tough outing at St James’ Park.
McGinn is respectful of the Magpies’ threats but says Villa are capable of winning three points on Tyneside.
“I’m excited, preparations are bubbling away,” he said.
“The challenge for us now is last season we surprised a lot of teams and we had an incredible run to get ourselves into Europe. Now the respect will go up and teams will try ten times harder to stop the way we play.
“We’ve got to embrace it. It’s the pressures of playing for a club that want to belong in the European places and try to get in the top six. We need to embrace that the pressure is on.
“We’re all looking forward to it. It’s a really tough game to start with; they’re a good side at home and our record there isn’t great.
“We’re in a good place and hopefully preparation continues to go as good as it has been. We’re all excited and looking forward to getting up there.”
He added: “We had a great game over in America; we showed our qualities and they came back at us with theirs. It was a bit like a boxing match. It ended in a draw, which was a fair result in the end.
“Once they get that place going it’s rocking. We need to be at our best to win but we’re going there to get the three points, and the full squad believe we can do that.”
The Scotsman is heading into his sixth season with the club in a good place after penning a contract extension in June.
And he’s hoping to contribute more at the attacking end of the pitch as Villa look to push on again after last season’s seventh place finish.
“Personally, I want to get more goals. My goal return in the last few seasons hasn’t been great,” he said.
“I’m now playing in positions higher up which allow me to do similar things that I’ve been doing for Scotland, trying to get into the box and create things.
“My position can change at any time; I’m quite versatile and the manager likes to change the way I play. I’m just happy to help the team.
“I certainly want to get more goals but as a team we want to do something exciting. I know we keep saying it but we need to have better runs in the cups, we need to progress as far as we can in Europe and in the league we’ll wait and see what we can do.
“We want to improve on last season, that’s the aim.”
