John McGinn knows Aston Villa will have to showcase the best version of themselves to get a positive result against Club Brugge on Tuesday night.
Villa arrived in Belgium on Monday evening for the first leg of their UEFA Champions League last 16 tie at Jan Breydelstadion.
Unai Emery’s side are no strangers to the Blauw-Zwart having suffered a 1-0 defeat when the two sides met in the league phase of the competition.
Hans Vanaken’s 52nd-minute penalty proved the difference for the Belgian champions, and captain McGinn is fully aware Villa will have to be at their best to gain reward this time around.
Asked how beneficial it will be to learn from the experiences of early November, he said: “Obviously, it’s beneficial for both sides.
“I don’t think either have changed our style too much.
“The game was tight here before, but Club Brugge deserved to win.
“So, we know we have to be at our best to get a result, we need to play a lot, lot better than the last time we played here.
“And they’ve been very, very strong at home in the competition.
“We know we need to be at our best to put in a good performance and get a result.
“We analysed that game this morning, so we know the parts of that game where we were poor and where we did things well.
“We’re well set for tomorrow and looking forward to it.”
Villa resume their European adventure on the back of Friday’s FA Cup victory over Cardiff City, which secured a quarter-final place and extended the club’s unbeaten home run in all competitions to 15 matches stretching back to October.
The Villans, however, have lost their last three away matches and won one of the last seven on their travels.
And McGinn is fully aware Villa need to improve their away form as they prepare to face Brugge in the knockout tie.
“We’re aware of it, it’s not something we’re ignoring,” he said.
“We obviously know going away, it’s very difficult wherever you go, whether that’s in the Premier League or in Europe.
“We’ve had some good results this season – RB Leipzig among a couple of others.
“But we’ve been far too inconsistent, far too easy to play against, too easy to score against.
“We’re aware of those things, but luckily we’ve got the opportunity now to change it.
“We can’t change the results of the season already gone, so we’ve got the chance to be tougher to beat – we need to win more duels, need to be harder and stronger in the tackle and that’s certainly something we need to do.
“We need to start with a clean sheet and try to nick a goal from a counter-attack, something we were very strong at doing last season, both domestically and in Europe.
“We were very good on the break, very tough to break down and we know what’s needed to get back to that.”
