Scotland World Cup star John McGinn responds to Roy Keane over 'pub player' jibe

Manchester United legend Keane angered the Tartan Army with his comments about the Aston Villa captain, which were made last week prior to Scotland's opening World Cup match against Haiti.

McGinn scored the only goal of the Group C clash in Boston to secure Scotland's first World Cup win in 36 years - less than a month after captaining Villa to Europa League glory against Freiburg.

The 31-year-old is a talisman for both club and country but Keane admitted he has not always been impressed by the former Hibs and St Mirren midfielder.

"When he has his bad days, he looks like a pub player," he said of McGinn on The Overlap podcast. "When he's off, he looks shocking."

Keane then balanced the criticism by adding: "You'd have him in your group, absolutely, and it's no surprise Villa are doing well and he's at the forefront of that."

McGinn, though, insisted he took no offence and admitted that he was flattered to be the subject of discussion.

"He's getting slagged for that but I didn't think what he said was that bad," McGinn told ITV Sport. "He actually followed it up with something complimentary.

"No, he was right. I actually think the amount of games that I'm looking like a pub player is getting less and less as I get older.

"I try and not have as many games like that and be more consistent. But I don't think it was too bad. Poeple were saying, did you see what he said, but I just thought it was quite nice that they were talking about me."

McGinn also agreed with Keane's claim that Scotland have nothing to fear against Morocco this Friday.

"He's right, we've got nothing to fear going into these games," he added. "All the pressure going to be on Morocco and Brazil."