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Unai Emery knows exactly when Aston Villa need Tyrone Mings
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- Unai Emery knows exactly when Aston Villa need Tyrone Mings
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Unai Emery knows exactly when Aston Villa need Tyrone Mings
Tyrone Mings probably isn't going to start every week for Aston Villa this season and I don't think anybody, including Mings himself, would expect that to be the case at 33, but Saturday's draw against Hull City was another reminder of why I still think he is hugely important to this football club.
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There was some surprise when the team came out and Mings was starting ahead of Pau Torres , but once you looked at the game Villa were going into, I could completely understand Unai Emery's thinking. Hull are physical, they put crosses into the box, Oli McBurnie gives centre-halves a difficult afternoon and this was always likely to be a game where Villa had to win first contacts and deal with that threat before worrying about everything else.
That is Mings' game and, by and large, I thought he did it well. There was a moment towards the end where he switched off, appeared to try to play offside when the rest of the defence didn't and Villa were fortunate that McBurnie couldn't take advantage, so it certainly wasn't a flawless performance, but for the majority of the afternoon I thought he gave Villa exactly what Emery had put him into the team to provide.
The clean sheet was Mings' 50th in the Premier League for Villa in 174 appearances, which I thought was an interesting statistic when I saw it after the game because it made me wonder how that compared to Ezri Konsa , who left this summer as one of the best centre-halves Villa have had in recent times.
Konsa kept 57 Premier League clean sheets in 231 appearances for Villa and I'm not presenting those numbers as proof that Mings is a better defender because football obviously doesn't work like that, while Dave Reed made the very fair point on 1874 that the type of games Mings has been selected for will have played a part. What I do think is interesting, though, is how many of Konsa's clean sheets came with Mings alongside him and how effective that partnership was for such a long period. The numbers show, without Mings, Konsa was involved in less clean sheets.
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It also brings us to something Villa are having to deal with now because there isn't really an established centre-back partnership at the football club. Konsa and Mings knew each other's games inside out, while Konsa and Pau had developed their own understanding over the last few seasons, but suddenly the one constant in all of those partnerships has gone.
Victor Lindelof has played alongside Pau and Mings, Taylor Harwood-Bellis has arrived but hasn't yet been involved and Emery is essentially trying to establish new relationships in one of the areas of the pitch where understanding between players is probably most important. That makes Mings' experience even more valuable in these opening weeks because he has been through virtually everything at Villa and understands exactly what Emery expects.
There is also something bigger than what happens during the 90 minutes because Villa have gone through an enormous amount of change this summer. Players who have been major figures at the football club have left and a lot of new personalities have walked through the door, so retaining and relying on people such as Mings, John McGinn , Matty Cash and Boubacar Kamara becomes increasingly important.
Those are players who understand the standards at Aston Villa, know the manager and can help new signings understand what is expected without Emery having to be responsible for absolutely everything himself. You need senior players in a dressing room who can lead by example, deal with issues before they become bigger problems and essentially have the manager's back, and Mings has been that type of character at Villa for years, sometimes that is needed on the pitch.
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I also think Emery has consistently shown us how much he values him when things aren't quite going as Villa would like. We saw it at the beginning of last season and we are perhaps seeing it again now, because when Emery feels his team needs to become a little bit more robust and difficult to play against, Mings tends to find his way into it.
That doesn't mean he suddenly becomes first choice ahead of Pau because they are very different centre-halves who give Villa different things, and there will be games where Pau's ability on the ball and his passing through the lines is considerably more important to the way Emery wants his team to play. There will equally be opponents where Mings' physicality, aerial ability, communication and defensive instincts make him the better option, and Hull was a good example of that.
That is why I don't really understand the idea that a player has to be either a guaranteed starter or somebody Villa should have moved on from. Mings can be behind Pau in the pecking order and still be absolutely crucial across a season in which Villa will need different types of centre-halves for different challenges.
His injury history obviously means his minutes have to be managed and he isn't the player Villa should be building their defence around for the next few years, but that isn't what they need him to be anymore. They need him to be available, set standards, lead the group and give Emery a different type of defender when a game requires it.
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Saturday was one of those occasions and Villa came away with a clean sheet at a time when the manager appears determined to get the defensive foundations of his new-look team right before everything else begins to fall into place.
Mings has been part of Aston Villa through some enormous changes and, even as his role evolves at this stage of his career, I still think there will be plenty of moments this season when Emery looks at the challenge in front of him and decides Tyrone Mings is exactly the player he needs.
