By Graham Hill
JOHN McGinn admits that Villa’s players have even surprised themselves by winning eight matches in a row.
The Villa midfielder has been one of the key players in an incredible revival which has re-ignited their promotion hopes.
But in February, Villa’s hopes of a top six place looked out of reach and the planning for next season was under way.
Villa had just lost at home to West Brom and a hard-fought point at Stoke barely kept their campaign alive.
But they won all of their games in March and carried it on into April.

And on Saturday, they equalled a 44-year record of eight successive wins with victory over Bristol City.
But McGinn says the squad never saw it coming.
The Scot told reporters: “Nine wins is the aim, but if you’d asked us a couple of months ago whether we’d be in the play-off spots, we’d have laughed at you.
“But we’ve shown great form and now we’re in there.
“We matched a record number of wins but we weren’t really thinking about it.
“We’ve given ourselves a great chance and we need to capitalise on this.”