Blackburn Rovers and Tony Mowbray made huge transfer error - Aston Villa are laughing now | OneFootball

Rovers could have signed John McGinn back in 2018 - their decision not to has proven to be a bad mistake

Aston Villa captain John McGinn has become one of the Premier League's best midfielders over the last few years amid his side's rise under Unai Emery, but his career could have been very different had Blackburn Rovers and Tony Mowbray made a different decision back in 2018 - one which they will surely regret nowadays.

Glasgow-born McGinn started his senior career at St Mirren in 2013, then joined Hibernian in 2015 and led the capital side to Scottish Cup success in his debut season and then promotion to the Scottish Premiership a year later.

His impressive top-flight form saw him courted by numerous clubs ahead of the 2018 summer transfer window, including Blackburn, but they decided against pursuing his signature, and so he instead made a £2.8 million switch to fellow Championship outfit Villa in August of that year.

That transfer has proved to be one of the best value signings in the Villans' history, as the Scottish international has been a key part of their sides during their promotion to the Premier League, consolidation in the top-flight, and then subsequent Champions League adventures over the last few years under Emery.

Blackburn have no doubt massively missed out, and will wonder what could have been had they not turned down the chance to bring McGinn in all those years ago.

Tony Mowbray decided against signing John McGinn for Blackburn in 2018

Blackburn headed into the 2018 summer transfer window off the back of promotion to the Championship from League One, with Mowbray taking charge of his second full campaign in charge.

They were looking to bring in some second-tier-ready players ahead of the new season, with the likes of Joe Rothwell, Kasey Palmer, Jack Rodwell and Harrison Reed signed to bolster Mowbray's options in the middle of the park.

McGinn, then only 23-years-old, had faced transfer interest from Celtic and was linked with a move to Nottingham Forest, but instead made an official move to Villa on August 8 as he moved south of the border for the first time in his career.

He played against Rovers for Hibs in pre-season, and just a few months after his move to the Second City, Mowbray revealed how the club had been tracking his availability, but decided against making an official approach for his signature earlier that summer.

“John McGinn is a good footballer and had been on our radar a long, long time. I know the people at Hibernian very, very well and there was a sense he was leaving. Celtic had been mooted a lot," he told the Lancashire Telegraph.

“John fell into a category of where we were going to spend some of the money, how much on this position, and at the early part I didn’t really see central midfield as somewhere where we needed to spend a lot of money.

“I felt as though we were reasonably strong in that area of the pitch and wanted to spend it in other areas. John was on the radar, it’s good for him to come to England and test himself.

“It’s been a pretty common route to leave Edinburgh and go to Glasgow and the Old Firm but it was good for John McGinn to come to England and test himself in a league where he will get tested. I’m looking forward to seeing him.”

McGinn has become an Aston Villa legend over the last seven years

Just a week after Mowbray was quoted as saying that Blackburn were interested in McGinn, the Scottish midfielder scored one of the finest goals ever seen in the Championship, or even English football as a whole, with a sumptous volley against Sheffield Wednesday to open his Villa account.

It was clear pretty early on that Rovers had made a mistake, as he became a regular for the Villa Park side while they chased promotion under Dean Smith. McGinn scored the all-important second goal in their 2-1 play-off final win over Derby County at the end of his debut campaign, and neither he nor his club have barely looked back since.

The box-to-box enforcer has made close to 300 appearances for Villa since his arrival up to now, and has been a constant in each of their Premier League campaigns over the last six years, with at least 28 league games played in each.

He was named club-captain by then-boss Steven Gerrard in July 2022, and has signed numerous new contracts that have each represented the progress he has made at the club. McGinn is also a key player for the Scotland national team, with 20 goals in 75 appearances for his country.

Now 30-years-old, he is showing no signs of dropping off as yet, and he started in all but two of Villa's 12 Champions League games this season, while also recently picking up their Goal of the Season award for a brilliant April strike against PSG in the quarter-finals of the competition.

He is a modern-day Villa icon, with their journey from Championship obscurity to the upper echelons of the Premier League being one that only he can say he has been a part of the whole way through.

Blackburn, meanwhile, have remained in the second-tier since that 2018 promotion, and their error in not signing McGinn has been made increasingly clear over the last seven years.