Double top for Ginny

AFTER a setback in the capital in midweek, Aston Villa returned to winning ways on Saturday afternoon with a 3-1 victory over struggling Nottingham Forest at Villa Park.

- By JOHN TOWNLEY

Securing an 11th home win in a row, Villa are now firmly cemented in the top three of the Premier League, eight points ahead of Liverpool in fourth place.

Ollie Watkins opened the scoring for Villa late in the first half, before John McGinn scored twice, either side of Morgan Gibbs-White briefly halving Forest's deficit.

Here are the talking points from Villa's win...

McGinn scores first Premier League brace

McGinn’s double was the first of his Premier League career; in fact, it was only his second brace in 311 appearances in all competitions for Villa, with the other also coming against Forest in March 2019 in the Championship.

His first goal was a well-taken finish from Matty Cash's cross from the right, before he punished Forest goalkeeper John Victor for racing off his line - a terrible judgement call prior to the keeper later being forced off injured.

McGinn has now scored two league goals this season, doubling his tally from last term, though he has scored eight times across all competitions since the start of last season, including three in the Champions League.

Last season, only Watkins and Morgan Rogers hit double figures across all competitions, so there remains a need for more goals from elsewhere in the squad if Villa are to continue their excellent first half of the season both domestically and in Europe.

"The manager pushes us a lot and says I should be scoring a lot more goals," McGinn admitted to the BBC after full-time.

"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.