Tyrone Mings has hit back at Graeme Souness after the Liverpool legend wrote less than complimentary things about the defender in his newspaper column.
Mings has been in the headlines recently, following Steven Gerrard’s decision to strip him of Villa’s captaincy ahead of the new campaign after the player suffered a serious dip in form last season.
While the 29-year-old has publicly issued his support for new captain John McGinn and said he had no issues with his manager’s decision, further questions were raised about his future and ability after he was left on the bench for Villa’s opening day defeat to Bournemouth.
Gerrard later said: ‘When Tyrone is back at his best and looks me in the eye and shows that he’s ready to play, he’ll get opportunities.’
It was therefore a surprise when Mings returned to the starting XI on Saturday, but he impressed in the Villans’ 2-1 victory over Everton, with Gerrard more than happy with his performance and conduct in training throughout the week.
However, Souness isn’t so convinced and in an article for the , he was bizarrely scathing of the England international’s attitude: ‘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”.
‘It’s fine being able to communicate and get your message across. But only so long as you can back it up. Mings is talking a good game without achieving anything and I include in that assessment some of his one-v-one contests against some of the Premier League’s stronger strikers.
‘I can’t emphasise strongly enough the significance of what Steven has done here, though. It’s not like you’re just leaving a player out, or even subbing him after 10 minutes.
‘This is you making a statement that there’s something about this guy that is fundamentally wrong. You’ve embarrassed him. He will think he’s been publicly humiliated.’
But Mings responded to Souness via Twitter saying: ‘What a weird article. That zoom call I was invited on was two years ago and he said nothing to me at the time, now wants to drag me into his pointless column.
‘By the way, I’ve achieved plenty from where I started. Happy to chat things through if you ever need me.’
Mings began his career in non-league, before moving up the divisions to Ipswich and then Bournemouth, before heading to Villa Park in 2019.
He helped the club win promotion to the Premier League that year before aiding them to re-consolidate their place in the top-flight, assuming the captaincy full-time in 2021 following the departure of Jack Grealish.
The centre-back has also been capped 17 times for England and was part of the squad that finished runner-up at Euro 2020.
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