Niall McGinn is readying himself for a summer to remember after helping Northern Ireland qualify for next summer’s European championship finals in France.
The Aberdeen midfielder capped a fine week for him on a personal level yesterday when he was named SPFL Premiership player of the month for September.
McGinn’s accolade completed a memorable seven days after he helped his homeland qualify for the 2016 Euro finals in France.
McGinn said: “It’s really nice to be recognised and it has topped off what has been an unbelievable week for me after that happened on the international stage.
“Not only qualifying for the finals in France but doing it as the first country to win the group after being drawn in pot five was beyond our wildest dreams.
“I wasn’t even born the last time Northern Ireland qualified for a major tournament, so to go down in history as being part of that is incredible.
“Everyone is on a real high and now we have a major tournament to look forward to in France next summer.
“It’s going to be a positive thing for us to aim for and the task now will be to do as well as possible for our clubs to get one of the 23 places in the squad next summer.
“My ambitions are to keep producing for Aberdeen and make sure I stay fit and healthy so that when Northern Ireland matches come round I’m part of the plans.”
McGinn returned to Pittodrie yesterday to collect his reward and manager Derek McInnes will be hoping some of the euphoria aids McGinn in his attempt to help the club get back to winning ways after two defeats.
The Dons remain one point clear of champions Celtic despite suffering back-to-back losses and McGinn knows it is vital his side beat Ross County at Dingwall on Friday.
He said: “We need to start improving on our record for October starting at Dingwall on Friday.
“That Ross County game can’t come quickly enough after what happened against St Johnstone before the international break.
“The players know themselves that wasn’t acceptable but it was just an all-round bad day at the office for the team that day.
“It won’t be easy as Ross County are playing really well but if someone had said in the summer we would be top of the league after 10 games we would have taken that.
“It’s all down to the work Derek McInnes has done right from when he came into the club as we have improved massively since then.
“Now we just want to get our early-season momentum back. It would be great to end the first set of 11 games as league leaders.”