Shropshire Star

John McGinn reminds Aston Villa players of key point after third straight home defeat

John McGinn insists Aston Villa are 'hurting' after their defeat to Manchester United - but the players can't forget what they've already achieved this season.

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Aston Villa's John McGinn

Villa's recent sticky patch continued as Scott McTominay headed in a late United winner, after Douglas Luiz had cancelled out Rasmus Hojland's opener.

It was Villa's third home defeat on the spin in all competitions - but McGinn stated that he is reminding the players how far they have come.

He said: "It was a tremendous cross for the winner and unfortunately big Scotty is great at coming in at that stage with a great header.

"It was a sucker punch for us, but the message is that we need to remember how far we have come as a club.

"We will not accept that defeat, we are hurting a lot in there but it is my job to keep us together, not pick faults or blame each other, we have come a long way as a group.

"We are in a great position to achieve something, we have had a bit of a poor spell these last few weeks, but we will keep together and if we played like we did today we will win more than we lose."

Villa got back into the game through Luiz and had chances to go on and win it before United's winner.

McGinn added: "I think I could feel us winning.

"We had chances on the break. United were breaking but not making too many chances, we defended well.

"We should be proud of the way we played compared to the other night, we were a shadow of ourselves the other night.

"We stuck to the game plan and on another day we win that."

McGinn also believes there is another part of Villa's season that many people have forgotten about - but he and his team mates won't be ever make excuses.

He added: "People have forgotten we have had huge injuries, and we are still managing to pick them up.

"That has gone under the radar and the manager is not making excuses, we have a good enough squad to cope."