TalkSport pundit and ex-Aston Villa striker Gabriel Agbonlahor has implored Unai Emery to hand the captain’s armband back to former skipper Tyrone Mings.
Agbonlahor was speaking on the captaincy issue at the club amid the Spaniard’s arrival at Bodymoor Heath.
Former Villa manager Steven Gerrard made the decision to take the captaincy off Mings and hand it to Scotland international John McGinn this summer.
However, following the former Rangers manager’s recent sacking, McGinn was dropped from the squad by interim manager Aaron Danks for Villa’s 4-0 thumping of Brentford, suggesting that his performances had dipped in the latter part of Gerrard’s tenure.
And Agbonlahor thinks that new manager Emery giving the captaincy back to Mings would benefit both players going forward.
He said: “Let John McGinn go back to the John McGinn before the armband, playing freely, go and enjoy your game.
“Let John McGinn get back in that side, go and play his football, which he’s very good at.
“Just give it back to Tyrone Mings, he looks like he loves being captain.
“Tyrone Mings looks like a very good captain, and [it was] very strange for Gerrard to take it off him.”
TIF Thoughts on Agbonlahor’s comments…
We think that Gerrard’s decision to strip Mings of the captaincy was a questionable decision in itself, with the situation likely to have caused a divide in the dressing room.
Therefore, we think that the best possible decision would be to revert things back to the way they were and have McGinn hand the captaincy back to Mings on a respectful basis.
In this instance, we feel that we have to agree with Agbonlahor and believe that if there’s a way that this situation can benefit both players, Emery should be taking that option up.