Speaking recently on an episode of The Villa View podcast, Gregg Evans discussed Aston Villa defender Tyrone Mings.
Moving to Villa from AFC Bournemouth in what was a £20.07 million deal back in 2019, Mings has gone on to feature 62 times for the club, chipping in with six goals and providing three assists along the way.
Last season, the £24.3 million-rated 27-year-old made 33 league appearances for Dean Smith’s side, scoring two goals and providing two assists, and averaging a slightly disappointing WhoScored match rating of 6.63 – ranking him as the club’s joint eighth-best performer in the Premier League.
However, so far this season, the England international appears to have made an improvement in his performances, having already scored two goals and provided one assist over his six Premier League appearances thus far, as well as averaging a much more impressive WhoScored match rating of 7.25 – currently ranking him as the club’s sixth-best performer in the league.
The centre-back was one topic of conversation on a recent episode of The Villa View podcast, in which Evans praised the defender’s vocal nature on the pitch.
He said: “It’s quite incredible, really. Honestly, I didn’t know that Tyrone was so vocal on the pitch because when the supporters are in the stadium, you can only hear shouts and screams, you can’t hear the step-by-step directions.
“He’s very much the on-field leader, the vocal leader, he’ll pull everybody together. It’s good to see because there aren’t too many like him, Virgil van Dijk is very similar, very vocal throughout the game and pulling the team in the direction that they need to go. It’s an old-school trait almost, isn’t it? It’s something that’s [been] lost a little bit.”
Have you been impressed with Tyrone Mings' performances this season?
Yes
No
TIF Thoughts on Gregg Evans’ comments regarding Tyrone Mings…
From Evans’ comments, it is clear that the journalist is impressed with how vocal Mings is on the pitch for Villa, with Evans even comparing the 25-year-old to Liverpool centre-back, Virgil van Dijk, in terms of how much both players talk during a match.
And, while we can’t comment on the vocality of Mings, as we have not been in attendance at any Villa games this season, after looking at the defender’s stats so far this term and discovering how impressive he has been in comparison to his previous campaign, if Evans is of the belief that the centre-back is also proving himself to be a leader on the pitch, this would only seem to compliment Mings’ apparent improvement as a centre-back.