Aston Villa, Tyrone Mings now set for his most crucial campaign

Tyrone Mings now set for his most crucial Aston Villa campaign, European platform could land him England exposure

Aston Villa are now set to undergo one of their most busy seasons yet over the past decade, with new European adventure on the horizon and it is shaping up to be Tyrone Mings’ biggest in a Villa shirt.

Under Steven Gerrard, at the start of the 2022/23 season, he was scapegoated for everything that was going wrong with the Birmingham outfit.

Mings desperately struggled to cope with the demands of the manager who failed to trust his then-captain and even stripped him of his leadership position, plunging his immediate future into serious jeopardy.

However, fast forward a year on and Villa’s trajectory and transformation has taken an exceptional turn for the better under new management in Unai Emery and arguably no player in the Spaniard’s squad has benefitted more than Mings.

Now, the England international may still be overlooked by his international manager Gareth Southgate but after the 2022/23 campaign, is now very much one of the best centre-backs in the league and arguably the best outside the Premier League’s top six.

And with Aston Villa set to undergo arguably one of their most pivotal campaigns in recent memory, the platform Mings is set to undertake may hand finally hand him the opportunity to stake his claim as one of the best around but more crucially, force him permanently into the England reckoning.

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And the stats from last season, show Mings is certainly on the right path.

Only the top four clubs (Manchester City, Arsenal, Manchester United and Newcastle United) conceded fewer goals than Villa’s 46, as per the official Premier League website.

Mings formed an exceptional pairing with Ezri Konsa, and Emiliano Martinez behind them in between the sticks, trendsetting Villa’s game under Emery and ensuring they emerged as one of the league’s surprise packages by the time it ended.

But while Mings’s composure and confidence on the ball were key, he still, of course, had to carry out his defensive duties expertly.

And he did just that, with the centre-back recording more interceptions (54) than any other defender during the 2022/23 Premier League season, as per the official Aston Villa Twitter account.

But his immense defensive efforts were not limited to just interceptions, with Mings making 158 clearances and 89 headed clearances.

As per the official Premier League website, those tallies were enough to place him in the top five of those two categories.

According to FBref, he is achieving a greater rate of pass accuracy regardless of whether it is a short, medium or long-range one which shows he’s worked on that side of his game.

In terms of short passes, he’s gone from 86.9 per cent to over 90 per cent while for mid-range ones he’s improved from 90.7 per cent to 92.8 per cent.

He’s shown a remarkable 10 per cent increase in the accuracy of his long-range passes and he’s become an ideal ball-playing defender.

But this new campaign presents new and more testing challenges which he must be prepared for. The Europa Conference League is no small fish as we’ve seen since its inception the season before last.

Its glamour, competitiveness and huge pull within the so-called “lesser” sides across the continent have been made pretty clear, one which Aston Villa may well find overwhelming, with games now coming thick and fast, every three days.

But that’s where Mings’ leadership and experience comes in.

It will certainly be new territory for him, but one which Emery will expect him to take on like a duck to water and such a glamourous platform could well usurp him towards England exposure, especially with his international teammate and positional competitor Harry Maguire struggling to make first-team ends meet at Manchester United.

If Mings carries on this stunning trajectory in an Aston Villa shirt, there’s no reason why he can’t become an England regular by the time the European 2024 Championships come around.

The stage is set for Aston Villa to impress upon their new platform, and Mings will certainly be at the forefront of their quest to challenge the elite on the continent.

It’s his biggest seasonal challenge to date, one he will be very much prepared to take on.

In other Aston Villa news, the club has been told to seal the re-signing of an expensive player amid transfer news.