digitalmigrant

🚨 John McGinn on Aston Villa’s 2-1 victory over Manchester City: “Before the game, the manager told us something very simple. He said, ‘If you want to beat Manchester City, first you have to prove you can run with them.’ And that was basically our preparation throughout the week. We weren’t spending the whole week talking about Haaland, or how much their players cost, or how good they are on the ball. We already knew all of that. The manager wanted us to match them physically. Every run, every sprint, every second ball. If one of their players covered ten metres, we had to be prepared to cover eleven. I remember one training session where we were absolutely exhausted. We’d just finished an exercise, and a few of the lads thought we were done. The manager called us back. Someone said, ‘Boss, we’ve already done that one.’ He said, ‘Yes, but Manchester City won’t stop running because you’re tired.’ So we went again. He kept telling us, ‘Don’t give them the advantage before the ball has even been kicked. If they run, you run. If they press, you press. If they fight for a ball, you fight harder.’ And he was right. You can have the best tactical plan in the world, but if you’re always arriving two seconds later than your opponent, what’s the point? We knew there would be difficult moments. You don’t play Manchester City and expect to control everything for 90 minutes. But we felt that if we could stay with them, compete for everything and make the game uncomfortable, we’d have a chance. Then Nicolas Jackson decided to make all that running worthwhile. His first goal was brilliant. The way he attacked the space, the confidence in the finish. That’s exactly what you need against a team like City because you might not get many opportunities. Then they equalised, and that’s when you start asking questions of yourselves. You’ve worked all week for this. You’ve run yourselves into the ground. Now they’ve scored, and you have to find another way. I remember looking around at the lads, and nobody seemed interested in settling for a draw. Then Nicolas got the ball outside the box. I was actually expecting him to take another touch. He didn’t. He hit it low, and the next thing I knew, we were celebrating. I went over to him and said, ‘Nico, do you know how much running we’ve done for you today?’ He laughed. I said, ‘I’m serious. Some of us can barely feel our legs.’ He told me, ‘That’s why I scored two. One wasn’t enough.’ And I loved that. Because that’s what a team is supposed to be. You’ve got players chasing, tackling, covering for each other, doing the things that don’t always appear in the highlights. And then you’ve got somebody like Nicolas who makes all that work count. We didn’t beat Manchester City because we had eleven players who were technically better than theirs. We beat them because we were prepared to work for each other, and when the moments came, Nicolas was ruthless. After the match, the manager was pleased, but he still reminded us about the running. I told him, ‘Boss, I think we’ve run enough for one week.’ He smiled and said, ‘Good. We’ll start again on Monday.’ That’s Unai Emery for you. But if Nicolas keeps scoring twice every time we run like that, I don’t think anybody will complain.”