Villa building something special, says captain McGinn

Aston Villa captain John McGinn believes the club are “building something special” after their 3-1 win over Nottingham Forest.

The midfielder scored his first Premier League brace in the victory, while Ollie Watkins also got on the scoresheet for his fourth goal in three games.

Villa have now won each of their last eight Premier League home games, their outright second-longest such run in the competition, only behind a 15-game streak between March and December 2023, also under Unai Emery.

They are also just three points behind league leaders Arsenal, who face Bournemouth later on Saturday, and McGinn is optimistic about Villa’s future.

“We’re building something special here, breaking more records and becoming more complete as a team,” McGinn told BBC Match of the Day.

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— Aston Villa (@AVFCOfficial) January 3, 2026

“Hopefully we can continue this run. Villa Park is a fortress at the moment. Exciting time to be a Villa player and a Villa supporter. We just keep riding that wave.

“The manager pushes us a lot and says I should be scoring a lot more goals.

“Thankfully I managed to get two goals today so hopefully he’ll get off my back a bit! I saw the keeper out so I managed to get it round him and into the goal.”

Forest, meanwhile, have now lost four in a row to leave them four points above the relegation zone in 17th.

Although Watkins’ opener was a moment of quality, Elliot Anderson and John Victor made mistakes for the second and third goals respectively.

Forest boss Sean Dyche believes his side cannot keep making such errors if they want to succeed in this league.

“Very frustrating for us. We delivered the first half as I wished they would until the last moment of truth. Credit to them, really good turn and finish,” said Dyche.

“The second goal was a basic mistake and we could have defended better. We scored a very good goal and then gave away another poor goal.

“You can’t give basic errors away to teams like this in the Premier League. The mentality is there but you can’t keep giving yourself a mountain to climb.

“Players were switching off to the basics, we have worked on it and shown them but this is the job. I never expected it to be easy when I got here.”