Aston Villa’s on-loan star Tyrone Mings has lifted the lid on what assistant head coach John Terry has been telling him since joining the club in January.
The 26-year-old moved to Villa Park on a temporary basis from Premier League side Bournemouth a few months ago, and he’s revealed that Terry has been constantly advising him since making the switch.
“We’ve sat down many times and his overriding comments to me are: ‘Go through the game without being seen’,” he told the Express & Star. “He tells me that a lot. As much as you want to improve the team or help the team, as a centre-back your job is to go under the radar and keep the ball out of the net.
“We sit down after my games and go through clips and work out on the training pitch together, so he’s been a big help in helping me improve my positioning and decision-making at centre-back, so that’s probably what I’ve learned. He can’t obviously help during the game, so anything away from the game, any little tips or hints he can give me on what he would have done, or what previous managers would have taught him is obviously invaluable.”
OPINION
How helpful must it be, as a centre half, to have Terry working with you day in day out? As Mings says, it’s absolutely invaluable. The former Chelsea man is one of the greatest centre backs English football has ever seen, so the wisdom he can pass on to Mings is second to none. And we’ve seen the impact that being at Villa, playing regularly and working with Terry and Dean Smith has had on the Bournemouth loanee. He’s been phenomenal since arriving in January, adapting from being a natural left back to one of the better central defenders in the Championship over the second half of the campaign. He will know that, while the lion’s share of the credit must go to him obviously, he couldn’t have done quite as well without Terry in his corner. It’s a great set-up they have at Villa Park at the moment, and Mings is just one of the players who has benefitted from it since Smith came in.