JOHN McGinn has admitted the disrespect shown to Scottish football down in England annoys him - and stressed he will be warning his fellow Aston Villa players not to take victory over his former club Hibernian for granted.
McGinn is looking forward to leading Premier League club Villa out in the first leg of their UEFA Conference League play-off double header against Hibs at Easter Road tomorrow evening.
However, the Scotland midfielder knows if Unai Emery’s side fail to perform at their very best against Lee Johnson’s team they will end up on the receiving end of a shock defeat.
He was impressed with how the Premiership side played both at home and away against Luzern of Switzerland in the third qualifying round and believes they are more than capable of pulling off an upset.
“I’ll be making the boys aware that we need to respect Hibs fully,” he said. “It’s very easy for people down here to disrespect Scottish football and I take that personally.
“I’m sure it will be a tough game and a very difficult start for us in European football. It’s my job to let the team know they will be in for a game as soon as that whistle blows. It’ll be frantic, frenetic, physical.”
But McGinn, who scored the opening goal in a 4-0 defeat of Everton at Villa Park in the Premier League on Sunday, is confident Villa will be well prepared for the “Battle of Britain” encounter.
"The manager treats every team the same,” he said. “Hibs will get the same respect Everton got. I just walked past the analysis room and there were about 10 guys going through all the Hibs clips from the Raith Rovers game and both legs against Luzern.
“I'll be making sure our full-backs know that Élie Youan and Martin Boyle are two dangerous players, but I'll also be warning the centre backs about Dylan Vente. I know they spent a lot of money bringing him in and he was really good in both Luzern ties.
“So the respect will be there. We'll absolutely respect Hibs, 100 per cent. Even though the financial gulf might be really big, we know as players that the margins are very small and on the night Hibs could turn up and win so we need to be focused and make sure we're at it.”
McGinn is determined to help Villa, who last played in Europe back in 2010, enjoy an extended run in the Conference League, but he dismissed suggestions they are the favourites to lift the trophy.
"It's a competition we want to win,” he said. “But I don't want to put us down as favourites. I've seen the comments from Lee Johnson and Adam Owen (Hibs assistant manager), who have us down as favourites. But I'm sure that's just the respect they have for the quality we have in our squad.
"It's very hard for us to envisage anything past the play-off round. We want to get into the group stages and progress as much as we can. We saw West Ham last season win it and what an occasion it was for the whole club.
"This club craves success, it's not had trophies in a long time, and the Conference League certainly gives us an opportunity to be in and around those semi-final and final stages. But first we've got the Hibees to get past. We don't want to look too far ahead."
