Aston Villa secured their first league victory of the new season with a 3-2 away win against Tottenham in the fifth round of the Premier League. After the match, Villa captain McGinn spoke to TNT Sports.

What a relief to get your first Premier League victory of the season. How much did you put into this win?

It was definitely a relief. Before the match, I was thinking about the upcoming international break, and this one is longer than usual. You definitely don't want to be in the bottom three of the table.

So it was a very important match, and we definitely worked hard for the victory. I felt our performance in the first half was very poor; we had almost no attacking presence. But in the second half, we weathered the pressure and ultimately deserved the win.

Your goalkeeper played brilliantly in the first half, laying the foundations for your second-half performance. Did you discuss that at halftime?

We scored at a very good moment. I was quite pleased then. We have a good record here, but we've had to defend a lot in the first half. The manager was quite happy with the 0-0 at halftime.

Since Emi Martinez joined us, he's been performing exceptionally well, and he came through for us under pressure today too.

I felt Matty Cash had some difficulties in the first half, but he looked much more confident in the second. I'm very pleased to see him perform like that today.

You must have great confidence in the manager, because you obviously had an outstanding season last year, winning the long-awaited trophy for the club, which was a great night. Then there were many player changes. It's surprising that you seem so well-organized now despite all the personnel changes. How does he do it in training? How does he get you to execute like this?

It's more through meetings off the pitch and lots of specific tactical drills. Honestly, the first half was really frustrating because normally our organization is much better than it was today. Whether it was throw-ins or set pieces, we were a bit all over the place.

Before the match, he explained his demands in great detail and how we could exploit certain spaces. I think he must have been very pleased when Jackson scored because we worked a lot on that aspect before the match.

But he's always been excellent, very calm. He just thinks about getting us back to our previous level, but this time with a new group of players.

Buendía spoke about believing in your own style of play because that's what you did at the start of last season. So with a slow start to this season, was there really no panic or concern among the players? Before this match, were you worried whether the new players believed in what made you successful in recent years?

That's how we approached it—Mings, Cash, Buendía, and I tell them: "This is our way, this is how we compete against the big teams."

The new players are adopting this gradually, it just takes time. It took Tielemans time, and it was the same for Digne.

Is that down to the "homework" you mentioned earlier? In other words, do they need to master a lot of details?

It's not easy, but it's worth it. If we need to play a certain way to get points, I wouldn't change it for anything.

Traducido por IA.

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