John McGinn

[SamTheMouse]

Just having him on the pitch will give the other players a mental lift. We've been short of a leader. Could make all the difference.

[Ian.]

The three of them are our heart, our brain and our backbone…

It would be like watching the Wizard of Oz without the Tin Man, Lion and Scarecrow.

[eamonn]

Of all the players we miss the most, it has to be McGinn and Kamara. To lose them both and Tielemans, is as proved catastrophic!

Welcome back skipper.

I think you could make a case for any of them being our most important player.

Yep, you’re probably right. We have (when fit) the best midfield in Europe.

My Chelsea colleague says they do. We asked a neutral. He said Everton *shrug*

[paul_e]

It really depends who you count as the midfield but, as a unit:

Kamara Onana
McGinn Tielemans Rogers

is as good a midfield as any in the world, when that was our regular starting group for a few months we were the in-form team in Europe despite Ollie being out of form.

[Rigadon]

Yep.  It makes me sad looking at it!

[Beard82]

I think McGinn and Kamara are the two biggest losses.  Kamara because he is amazing.

McGinn just brings so much you can play him in any roll and he’ll give a good perfomance - his tenacity and guile has been much missed particularly when we’re up against it

[Somniloquism]

Chosen in the Scotland squad. Please don't play too much Clarkey.

[LeeB]

I think McGinn and Kamara are the two biggest losses.  Kamara because he is amazing.

McGinn just brings so much you can play him in any roll and he’ll give a good perfomance - his tenacity and guile has been much missed particularly when we’re up against it

But the Tielemans is the valve, and without him we don't look half as effective in the final third. I said elsewhere that you could make a serious argument for any of the three being our best and most imprortant player

[brontebilly]

Where was McGinn playing v Man United? Kind of up front with Ollie and kind of nowhere.

[TheToffnar]

That's unfair. We looked reasonably solid until he went off.

[dorsetvillian]

We did look a lot more solid and controlled with McGinn and Barkley in the midfield. It was very comfortable for Villa and Utd were struggling to break us down. We also had 3 or 4 very promising transitions which all fell apart with Watkins. The same type of transitions where Utd scored twice in the second half.

[Drummond]

I think McGinn and Kamara are the two biggest losses.  Kamara because he is amazing.

McGinn just brings so much you can play him in any roll and he’ll give a good perfomance - his tenacity and guile has been much missed particularly when we’re up against it

But the Tielemans is the valve, and without him we don't look half as effective in the final third. I said elsewhere that you could make a serious argument for any of the three being our best and most imprortant player

And that's exactly it. They all bring something different, and complementary, that no other individual can replicate to that standard.

To lose all three at the same time is just terrible luck. No team would cope.