John McGinn believes Aston Villa are more than capable of turning around their Europa Conference League semi-final against Olympiacos.
Unai Emery’s side will take a two-goal deficit to Piraeus for the second leg following a 4-2 defeat in their initial meeting at Villa Park.
After two strikes from Ayoub El Kaabi, Ollie Watkins reduced the deficit on the stroke of half-time before Moussa Diaby restored parity early in the second period to send the home faithful into raptures.
But El Kaabi completed his hat-trick from the penalty spot before Santiago Hezze’s deflected long-range effort made it 4-2 to the Greek visitors.
Despite stressing his disappointment, captain McGinn is remaining upbeat and positive ahead of the second leg.
"Not the game we wanted. We obviously wanted a lot more control,” he said.
“We started the game well, Morgan had a chance and it was a good save at 0-0. A goal was disallowed, I’ve not seen it back so I’m not sure if it was, it looked a bit soft initially but I don’t know.
"They go 1-0 up, marginally onside, I think. We react pretty well, to be honest, and then we lose another goal, but it happens, they’re a good side.
“But we certainly wanted more control of the game, we wanted to get a victory going over to Greece, but we showed we’re more than capable of coming back and we proved that at 2-2.
“And then the penalty, that’s football, things happen. They score the penalty. I gave it away at 4-2, I don’t know why I’ve played the pass, I can carry on.
“Just mistakes all round. So, of course, we’re going to take responsibility, but it’s up to us to go to Athens next week and turn it around because I know we’re capable.”
Villa now travel to Brighton & Hove Albion on Sunday for another big Premier League encounter in the club’s quest to secure a top-four finish.
The Villans will then travel to Greece for next week’s second leg, with midfielder McGinn full of belief he and his team-mates can still progress to the final.
“The manager was very positive in there, there’s still a long way to go,” he added. “I know a lot of people will go home disappointed, none more so than us.
“But we have next week. We’ve also got a big game on Sunday to prepare for, so prepare Sunday, a massive game for us in terms of league position.
“And then going on to Thursday, which is a huge game for us and obviously we need to play a lot better than we did here, however we’re more than capable of doing it.”
