Having been capped for Scotland as a second-half substitute against Austria back in 2021, Paul McGinn joined before Motherwell’s Europa Conference League campaign in the summer of 2022.

McGinn started his career at Queen’s Park and earned his first big move to St Mirren in 2012. He went on to play for Dumbarton and Queen’s Park again before moving south to Chesterfield. He then came back to Scotland in 2017 and has featured for St Mirren, Partick Thistle and Hibernian.

Bags of experience and capable of playing across the backline, McGinn quickly established himself as a starter and hit the 50-game mark in just over 12 months.

A fractured cheekbone would keep McGinn out for a number of weeks during the 2023 campaign, but his experience and leadership are there to see, with the 33-year-old named captain by manager Stuart Kettlewell at the start of the 2024/25 season.

The season would not go the way McGinn would have hoped, with injury plaguing any consistent match action. Having recovered from a three-month layoff, the defender would have to come off early during his first start since returning, requiring surgery, ruling him out for the rest of the campaign. McGinn got himself back fit, however, by the end of the season and signed a new deal for the 2025/26 season.

And for his fourth season at Fir Park, Mr Consistent returned. The 35-year-old played 38 matches for the Steelmen and surpassed the 100-appearance mark for the club. In what was a defensively impressive season for the Steelmen that saw the team set a new club-record number of clean sheets, McGinn earned a spot in the PFA Team of the Season for the first time in his career, rounding off a stunning campaign.

Unfortunately, a knee injury sustained in the latter stages of the season ruled McGinn out of the last few matches, and surgery over the summer will see him miss the start of the 26/27 season.