I did not believe that Unai Emery could accomplish what he has Done at Aston Villa.

John McGinn claims Unai Emery has concentrated the minds of teammates he never thought would be able to sit through the Aston Villa head coach’s long meetings before and after matches.

Emery is renowned for leading his team with in-depth tactical lectures that provide his team the tools it needs to defeat the opposition.

The team that he took over from Steven Gerrard has benefited greatly from his techniques; players like Ollie Watkins, Douglas Luiz, and Ezri Konsa have all improved significantly in the last 12 months.

Villa skipper McGinn has also come on leaps and bounds under Emery and played a key role in the club’s turnaround.

Having secured European football with a seventh-placed finish last term, Villa proved their Champions League credentials by leapfrogging Tottenham and moving into the top four by winning in north London last weekend.

“It’s uncharted territory for us, really exciting, but we can’t get carried away,” McGinn insisted. “We’ve had a couple of opportunities to be near the top of the table already this season, but we haven’t taken them. But I think it’s just a sign of the consistency we’ve had.

“It’s my job and the manager’s job to keep a lid on things. We’ve got a really important month ahead and then after that we can maybe analyse what our ambitions are. It’s our job to just keep going, enjoy the ride and you never know.

“It’s hard to get the balance, you don’t want to get carried away, of course you don’t, because in this league, the minute you’re doing OK, you get stung. We’ve experienced that a couple of times.

“We’ve got a real desire, a focus, a concentration on what we can achieve this season. We want to achieve something we haven’t done for a long time.

“Last season was our highest finish in the table for a long, long time. Can we go and better that and try to get up there as quickly as possible and keep going, you never know.”

About Unai Emery

Speaking about Emery’s management style, McGinn said: “If anyone is trying to get hold of us and I’m not answering, I’m in the meeting room.

He does a lot of hard work, it’s just drilled into him, he wants to win, he’s won throughout his career and there’s no reason why he can’t do that here.

“He’s drilling that into us in the meeting room. There’s a lot of details, a lot of thinking, a lot of concentration required from us.

“He’s making people concentrate that I didn’t think were capable! I’m not naming any names!”

“The mindset, the will to win, just everything about him has been absolutely brilliant,” he continued.

He was completely consumed by his obsession with winning at Tottenham. We are instilled with that way of thinking and being.

“Before, we might have given up when we were behind, but to be fair, we played with strength and courage, and I was incredibly proud of the second half.” To put it succinctly, I would argue that it is not possible.

READ MORE ON sportupdates.co.uk