This football club deserves success - McGinn

John McGinn hailed Aston Villa’s display to reach the UEFA Europa League final as one of the best during his time at the club.

The home side were in charge from start to finish, putting four goals past Nottingham Forest without reply to win 4-1 on aggregate.

It was an unforgettable evening that delivered Villa to a second European final and first since 1982.  

“I’m normally quite calm before games but the pressure today was intense,” McGinn reflected.

“This group of players deserve to go one step further. We’ve had a few semi-final disappointments and you can kid on that it doesn’t affect you.

“I was nervous coming into the game and tonight was up there with one of the best performances I’ve seen here from a Villa team. We started with intent.

“We were probably lucky with the injuries Nottingham Forest had that weakened their side, but we needed to capitalise, and we did today.”

McGinn and this squad of players have suffered semi-final heartbreak in the past two seasons, but they put that behind them to reach the final in Istanbul.

The Villa captain was delighted for the fans, who gave the team superb support from warm-ups through to the final whistle.

He said: “We’ve been through a lot together. We’ve had low moments here, definitely.

“It’s a demanding club to play for, but when it’s like this, Villa Park is electric. There’s no better place to play your football every second week.

“What we’ve done over the last few years has been exceptional, and that’s what I said to the lads before the game: we needed to do ourselves justice.

“The margins in football are so slim that if we lost tonight we’d be the nearly men. When we go to Istanbul, we need to make sure we’re not the nearly men.”  

McGinn added: “The way this club’s grown, I feel like I’ve managed to grow step-by-step alongside it.

“There’ve been moments when I’ve not been at my best, but here at Villa Park is where I feel comfortable. I’m loving it at the minute.”

McGinn and co will now play for silverware in Turkey on Wednesday, March 20, aiming to etch their names into the history books.

“Now it’s about embracing it and trying to become legends,” he said.

“You see the guys from 1982 and the cup winners from the 1990s – it’s an historic club. It’s been a long time without success and they’ve been through some massive lows: relegation and then building back up.

“It’s a proud football club and it deserves success. Hopefully we can be the group that does it.”