ALEX McLeish has backed John McGinn to prosper in England with his former club Aston Villa after the Scotland midfielder's widely-anticipated switch from Hibernian to Celtic failed to materialise.

McGinn has long been heralded as the potential successor to Scott Brown at both Celtic and Scotland and was expected to join him at Parkhead during the summer.

However, the Glasgow club had three bids turned down by their Edinburgh rivals during the close season and the player moved down south to Birmingham in a £2.8 million deal last Wednesday.

The transfer surprised many in Scottish football, but McLeish, who spent the 2011/12 campaign in charge at Villa Park, can understand why it appealed to the nine-times capped 23-year-old and is confident he will do well down south.

“I can see the attraction of playing in England,” he said. “John’s style of play is likely to be suited to the Championship. Villa is a big club with great facilities and it’s a division where his swashbuckling approach can flourish.”

McLeish’s predecessor Gordon Strachan was keen for as many Scotland players as possible to be involved in the Champions League during his tenure and McGinn is unlikely to have the opportunity to play in Europe at Villa.

But as he looked ahead to a friendly game against Belgium and a Nations League match with Albania at Hampden next month, he expressed confidence the player, who was outstanding on his debut against Wigan on Saturday, will improve as a result of being involved on regular basis in the second tier down south.

“I don’t think it’s necessary for John to play there right now,” he said. “Maybe he’s been guaranteed a start at Villa, I don’t know. With the start he’s made there, the likelihood is that he will be playing for them most weeks and that’s important.

“Going to Villa will empower him and increase his confidence. Of course, that would also have happened if he’d signed for Celtic because he’s a boy who believes in himself.”

However, McLeish, who has played McGinn in the games against Costa Rica, Hungary, Peru and Mexico he has taken charge of since being appointed manager of the national team for a second time in February, stressed it was unreasonable to expect the former St Mirren player to perform the role that Brown did for his country.

“Scott played in different positions when he started out,” he said. “I gave him his debut for Scotland as a wide player with great energy. So that’s a similarity between them.

“Scott’s since developed into a really good player in terms of reading the game and his positioning, with and without the ball. I don’t think that John is that type of player just yet. That’s an ongoing education. Perhaps he’ll evolve into that, but I wouldn’t say that they’re like for like right now.”

James McArthur, who starred for Crystal Palace in their 2-0 win over Premier League newcomers Fulham at Craven Cottage on Saturday, is more likely to start in central midfield despite not being involved in any of the games McLeish has overseen since returning.

“He’s a good player, James,” he said. “I saw him at the weekend and he makes it look easy. He maybe doesn’t have the same all-action approach as Brown. But James is the same in terms of getting into the right positions, reading the game and keeping the traffic moving. He’s probably one of the most experienced midfielders we have.

“He played really well at the weekend – as he has done every time I’ve seen him. I watched him a couple of times in the past few months. He just couldn’t come to South America because of a back problem. We’ll see how he is in terms of his recovery during the close season. But it didn’t look as if it was a problem at the weekend.”

Meanwhile, McLeish indicated that he is likely to play Kieran Tierney at centre half going forward in order to accommodate both the Celtic left back and his Liverpool counterpart Andy Robertson in the same Scotland team.

“We have to maximise the best players,” he said. “Dare I say it, England did the same thing with Kyle Walker and Kieran Trippier. Walker is, to all intents and purposes, a wing-back. He took to the centre-back position like a duck to water. So there are ways to do it. There are ways to get all your

“I know you could push Andy on but, when a player is naturally a defender, they don’t like receiving the ball with their back to opponents and playing like a creative wide player.

“We’ve got the potential there. Again, I’ve got to find out if that will work for us. It was tried up at Aberdeen (in the friendly against the Netherlands in November) and it kind of worked. It’s about finding the best system for the best players”

The Nations League offers Scotland a chance to secure a place in the Euro 2020 finals if they come up short in qualifying and McLeish admitted leading the country to their first tournament since France ’98 would rank alongside anything he achieved in management.

“It would be up there with anything I’ve done in 22 years as a coach,” he said. “The next guy who gets Scotland to a major finals will be a national hero. Will they build a statue of me? I’d hope so!”