Tyrone Mings has hit back at Graeme Souness for his criticism after the defender was stripped of the Aston Villa captaincy.
Former Liverpool boss Souness issued a damning verdict on Mings after Steven Gerrard made the decision last month to replace him as Villa's captain for midfielder John McGinn. The Villa boss also decided to drop Mings for their opening day trip to Bournemouth - a game they lost 2-0.
Following the decision by Gerrard to replace him as captain, Souness made a brutal assessment of the defender. He wrote in his column for the Mail: "I won’t be joining the love-in for Tyrone Mings, the man Steven Gerrard has stripped of the Aston Villa captaincy in a move which, summed up in one sentence, says: 'I just don’t fancy you.'
"Mings is 'well-loved in the dressing room', apparently. Well, when he appeared a couple of times on Zoom for shows we were doing on Sky Sports during lockdown, I thought: 'For a young man who’s not achieved anything in the game you’ve a hell of a lot to say.'
"He’d been talking about how footballers were viewed as ‘commodities’ at the time and I asked him if he didn’t think players were incredibly fortunate to be doing their job. He had an answer for me, of course, but that encounter told me a lot."
Should Steven Gerrard have kept Tyrone Mings as his Aston Villa captain? Let us know in the comments below!
Mings made a return to the Villa starting XI for the visit of Everton, and he made quite the contribution as they ran out narrow 2-1 winners over Frank Lampard's side at Villa Park. He made a last-ditch tackle to deny Salomon Rondon from equalising, and controlled the Villa back four, especially from set pieces. And Mings has since responded to Souness' article on social media.
Mings wrote on Twitter: "What a weird article. That zoom call I was invited on was 2 years ago & he said nothing to me at the time, now wants to drag me into his pointless column. Btw, I’ve achieved plenty from where I started. happy to chat things through if you ever need me."
Having started his career in the non-league pyramid with Yate Town and Chippenham Town, Mings earned a dream move to Ipswich Town in 2012, where he cemented himself as a regular in the side. The tough-tackling centre-back then went on to join Bournemouth following their promotion to the Premier League.
Mings featured just 23 times for the Cherries over four years, however, before joining Aston Villa in 2019. He has since been a mainstay in the Villa side, appearing 129 times so far.
