John McGinn faces fresh Celtic vs Aston Villa injury sweat as hero exits fray

IT’S a match which John McGinn – and his entire family – have been looking forward to.

But the Scotland man faces a fresh sweat when it comes to his hopes playing in the huge Champions League clash against Celtic at Villa Park on January 29.

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That’s because he lasted just NINETEEN minutes of today’s meeting with Leicester City in the English Premier League.

It appears as though he’s suffering with a hamstring problem and Villa will hope that they’ve caught the incident soon enough that he hasn’t sustained any major damage.

Unless it’s a very minor strain, most hamstring problems are severe enough to force a player to shut down training for around three weeks.

And that would make timing very tight indeed ahead of the clash between his boyhood heroes and Villa on January 29.

Beyond that, Scotland are back in action in some massive Nations League play-off clashes against Greece at the end of March.

McGinn, the grandson of former Hoops chairman Jack, has returned to real form recently at the end of the year, and he had let slip how many Hoops fans in the family had been besieging him for tickets.

He said: “Obviously a lot of my family and friends are wanting tickets but they’re not to be trusted!

“I mean they’ll send us a message, can you get us tickets? And I say, aye but you can’t cheer a Celtic goal, and then I don’t get a reply.

“I’m afraid I’m the home end, but though it’ll be strange I’m obviously looking forward to it and hopefully we can get the win.

“Everyone keeps saying to me they hope both teams are qualified, which is a possibility.

“But I think when you’ve got an essential battle at Britain, as they call it, it’s always going to be feisty.”

The midfielder has previously spoken of how he idolised Hoops star Henrik Larsson during his time at the club.

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