John McGinn was the hero in Scotland's World Cup win over Haiti and has defended Roy Keane after the Irishman said the midfielder 'looks like a pub player' at times prior to his heroics at the World Cup.
McGinn wrote his name into the history books by plundering the only goal in Scotland's first World Cup win in a generation against Haiti on Saturday. The Scot's first World Cup triumph in 36 years came in their opening game of the tournament. Their last appearance at a World Cup came all the way back in 1998.
Over the past few years, McGinn has established himself as one of Scotland and Aston Villa's most important players, with the 31-year-old captaining Villa to Europa League glory just weeks before jetting off to the World Cup to represent his country.
Keane, though, was questioned after criticising McGinn's levels. "McGinn is one of these fellas, when he has his bad days, he does look like a pub player," the ITV pundit said prior to Scotland's historic win over Haiti. "When he's off it, he's shocking. I've watched him long enough. When he's bad, wow. But you'd have him in your group. Absolutely."
Keane's comments may have riled some, but not McGinn, who quipped that the former Manchester United and Republic of Ireland midfielder had a point before reasoning that the pundit was ultimately trying to pay him a compliment.
"He's getting slagged for that, I didn't think what he said was that bad! He followed it up with something complimentary," McGinn told ITV. "He was right. I actually think the amount of games I'm looking like a pub player is getting less and less as I get older; I try not to have as many games like that and try to be more consistent. But I didn't think it was too bad."
The outcome of games against Morocco and Brazil will determine whether or not Scotland can advance to the knockout stages of the competition and McGinn agrees with Keane over the fact that Steve Clarke's team have nothing to fear in their remaining group fixtures.
McGinn continued: "People were saying, 'Oh, did you see what he said?'. I just thought it was quite nice they were talking about me! He's right [about Scotland], we've got nothing to fear going into these games. All the pressure's going to be on Morocco, all the pressure's going to be on Brazil."
