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Football

07th Feb 2017

Aston Villa player had the perfect response to criticism from Paul McGrath

The Irish legend later apologised for criticising the player...

Robert Redmond

Paul McGrath wasn’t happy on Saturday evening, like all Aston Villa fans.

Villa lost 2-1 to Nottingham Forest in the Championship game, with the home side winning it in stoppage thanks to a goal from 17-year-old Ben Brereton.

Steve Bruce’s side haven’t won a game since December 26 and are currently in 14th position, 13 points away from the play-off places.

Considering Villa have spent almost €75m on new players since last summer, this season has been a bit of a disaster.

Everyone associated with the club is understandably frustrated as another season away from the Premier League looks inevitable.

McGrath vented his frustrations on Twitter following Villa’s latest loss, and one player in particular came in for criticism.

The former Republic of Ireland and Villa defender wasn’t pleased with the performance of Jonathan Kodjia.

McGrath was critical of Kodjia’s work rate and failure to link-up Scott Hogan, Villa’s new striker signed from Brentford.

The Villa legend appeared to be genuinely remorseful as he delivered criticism, but clearly felt some hard truths needed to be delivered to the forward.

Big Paul was still apologising the following day.

The man clearly has a lot of love for his former club, where he played between 1989 and 1996, winning two League Cups and the PFA Player of the Year award in 1993.

McGrath was also an extremely popular player with fans in the Holt End and will be remembered as a club legend.

As such, Villa fans would undoubtedly back McGrath’s criticism of Kodjia.

But the former defender evidently still didn’t feel right about criticising the player and apologised again on Monday evening.

Kodjia, however, had the perfect reaction to McGrath’s tweets, and clearly took the criticism well.

Which McGrath appreciated.