Aston Villa boss Unai Emery confirmed that Tyrone Mings was replaced in our win over Bournemouth due to fatigue and not an injury.
The 32-year-old was one of four Villa changes for the trip to the Vitality Stadium as he came into the line-up to replace Pau Torres in the heart of our defence.
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It proved to be a sensible decision as Mings was a pivotal presence in defence, with his physicality, reading of the game, positional awareness and organisation of the defensive line all critical factors in helping us keep a clean sheet.
Further, it was his 14th Premier League appearance of the season, and Villa are unbeaten in all of those games, which would suggest it’s more than a coincidence that good things happen when he’s involved.
Nevertheless, after being replaced in the 71st minute despite having played so well and been such an important factor in us being ahead at that stage, there was concern that he might have picked up a knock as it didn’t seem to make sense to take him off with such a critical period in the game ahead with us holding on to a lead.
Emery confirmed his reasoning for the decision, and fortunately, it wasn’t due to injury with Villa now switching focus to our remaining two Premier League games of the season against Tottenham and Manchester United in the coming weeks.
“He was getting tired,” Emery told the media, as per BirminghamLive. “I decided to substitute him because we needed to be defensively strong. He played fantastic.”
This was arguably the ideal game for Mings to come in, as we needed to shore things up defensively against a dangerous Bournemouth side who boast plenty of attacking quality, and it proved to be an excellent decision as we ultimately kept a clean sheet, which in turn was the foundation for us to build on and get the win.
It remains to be seen if the Villa boss prefers Pau against Tottenham given we’re at home and will look to be on the front-foot more by controlling possession and tempo, and the Spaniard gives us that with his composure and technical ability.
Having Mings available will be an important option to have at his disposal though, and particularly after recent setbacks suffered by Marcus Rashford and Youri Tielemans, we could certainly do with avoiding any further blows between now and the end of the campaign.
