Aston Villa boss Steven Gerrard praises returning Tyrone Mings and reflects on ‘deserved’ criticism
- Seb Sternik
- 13 August 2022
Steven Gerrard was thrilled with the impact of returning centre-back Tyrone Mings as Aston Villa fought off a late Everton comeback to seal their first win of the season.
Mings was stripped of the captaincy before the new season in favour of John McGinn and was left on the bench during last weekend's loss to Bournemouth.
Gerrard revealed that the England international was rested during the season opener due to a minor injury, but was happy with his performance against Everton.
"I certainly understand when you make a decision like that externally there'll be a lot of noise," said Gerrard.
"We think Tyrone Mings is a fantastic footballer with big attributes and he's going to be a big help to me and the team moving forward. He was injured last weekend but today and building into this game he trained really well, his focus was there.
"I thought he was really good for large parts of the game today and really dominant and he played his part in a really important win for us."
Gerrard faced criticism after his side fell to a surprise 2-0 loss against Bournemouth last weekend.
Nevertheless, the former Rangers boss watched a far more ensured performance from his side as goals from Danny Ings and Emiliano Buendia helped the Villans to their first win of the new campaign.
"I think we deserved the external criticism (last week)," said Gerrard. "But what we did do is we stayed calm and we used the week to prepare in the best way we can. We asked the players to go out and deliver a response and I think we got that across the board.
"I think when you get the Villa Park crowd and the team at that level of performance, we're a good team. I think it was one of our strongest performances that we've had since we've been together in terms of control, positional play.
"We looked really dangerous. We could have had a few more goals. We had some nervy moments because we lost our focus and we were a little bit naive when we went 2-0 up so there's still loads to learn."
