Amid the excitement generated at Aston Villa by the arrival of Steven Gerrard as manager in November and signings such as Philippe Coutinho in January, it is easy to forget that less than three months ago folks around Villa Park were wondering whether the club might slip into a relegation battle.
If there is one match that encapsulates how badly pre-season plans went awry, it was the home game against West Ham on 31 October. There was a surprise before kick-off when the team sheet revealed that Dean Smith had dropped Tyrone Mings, who had been the linchpin of Villa’s defence since joining in 2019 when they were 10th in the Championship, becoming so influential that he was appointed club captain after Jack Grealish’s departure last summer. West Ham beat Villa 4-1, with Mings introduced as a second-half substitute after his usual partner in central defence, Ezri Konsa, was sent off. When Villa also lost their next match, against Southampton, the club took the difficult decision to jilt Smith, who had led them to promotion and survival.
In advance of Wednesday’s match against Leeds United, Mings reflects with characteristic intelligence on a see-saw season, speaks of higher points to come and tells of how being dropped drove him to take stock.
“Yes, it was a surprise,” he says. “Without bashing a man who doesn’t have the ability to defend himself any more because he’s no longer the manager – and respectfully because we went on an amazing journey together – I didn’t agree with the decision at the time. It felt like I was being scapegoated a little bit. But the manager is the manager and he felt that was the right moment to take me out of the team.
“I used it as a time of reflection. I had to look at my performances and ask: ‘Have my performances been good enough? No, probably not.’ We were struggling as a team and I was struggling with my performances after a summer with a short break [because of Euro 2020]. So did I want to blame the manager for taking me out of the team or show the manager that he shouldn’t take me out again with my performances when I got back in? That was the route I took. Unfortunately for the manager he lost his job quite soon after that so we’ll never know what the journey would have looked like since then.”
What, specifically, did Mings do to ensure he regained his best form? “I think I stopped worrying about other people so much,” he replies. “I was new into the role of captain at the time and my initial concerns were trying to get the team firing again because I felt, as I do now, such a weight of responsibility to get the team successful and to keep improving. Sometimes when you care so much, the losses and bad performances hurt even more.
“I was probably trying too much to fix all the problems we had rather than just worrying about being a good centre-back. So when I was dropped it allowed me to strip everything back and say: ‘You know what, I’m going to be the best centre-back I can be and contribute to the team that way, give us a solid platform to build from, try to keep balls out of our net and do everything a good centre-back should do.’”
When it comes to balancing captaincy duties with individual responsibilities, Mings could have few better advisers than Gerrard. “We have spoken about how he was as a captain. Of course I can’t emulate exactly how he was, nor would it be sensible for me to try to emulate any other person … but we spoke about the differences in how you lead, when the responsibility lies with you to speak to players off the pitch and how you empathise with people – all those different things that come with being captain or a senior player.
“He’s given me some really insightful information about how he was. Some of it will stick and some of it will be unrelatable. At the moment I can’t relate to winning the Champions League or competing for stuff like that!”
Villa hope such stuff lies ahead. Mings has certainly enjoyed working with Gerrard so far. “It’s absolutely brilliant,” he says. “There are times when you can see Steven Gerrard the captain. Sometimes when he joins in training he still has that winning mentality on the pitch. As a manager he’s fantastic. He’s crystal clear in terms of how he wants us to play, the team he wants us to be and the values he wants us to stand for. When the messaging is so clear, you know exactly what you’re buying into, how to buy into it and how to deliver what he wants. And then when you step on to the pitch, it’s up to you whether you do it or not.
“Steven Gerrard the manager is pushing us to limits that maybe some of the team didn’t know we could go to. We’ve had the emergence of some really good young players, while for some more established players, their game has gone to another level.”
And, of course, there has been the arrival of Coutinho. “It gives everybody a lift that Villa can attract that calibre of player. We see what a fantastic player, but more importantly, what a great human he is. He’s blended into the group seamlessly. I think it says a lot about him that he wanted to come and push himself again in the Premier League.
“In the three years I’ve been here I’ve seen a huge turnover of players and now a managerial change but what hasn’t ever changed is the fact that this club needs to and should be back in the top half, and eventually the top quarter, of this league. The players we’re bringing in now show how far we’ve come but we’re still a fair way away from the team we want to be. And that is exciting in itself. It’s been far too long since Villa had silverware and a period of sustained success and I think that’s what the fans deserve and the owners and the club demand.”