Aston Villa defender Tyrone Mings has confirmed that he’ll be pushing to return to action this summer when our pre-season schedule gets underway.
The 31-year-old was limited to just 31 minutes of football this past year, as he suffered a serious knee injury in our season-opener against Newcastle Utd last August.
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It quickly followed a similarly devastating setback for Emiliano Buendia, and so while Villa did brilliantly without the pair given what we achieved in the campaign, it will be a huge boost to have the influential pair back next season.
While Villa have previously confirmed that Buendia is back working with the group, Mings has been making steady progress too having returned to the outside pitches at Bodymoor Heath and reached an advanced stage in his comeback.
However, ultimately neither were able to feature before the campaign concluded this past weekend, and so the hope was that they would be ready and considered fully fit this summer to go through a full pre-season to get them into the best possible shape ahead of the new season.
As per Mings in his social media post below, he has now confirmed that will be the case for him.
“As the curtains come down on a historic season for the club, I just want to say how proud I am of what the club have achieved,” he wrote on Instagram. “Sure, I’d have liked to have played a bigger part on the pitch but I truly believe that everything happens for a reason.
“The love and support I’ve felt by my teammates, the staff at the club, and you fans has been nothing short of amazing. Sure, it’s been tough. Sure, there have been more hiccups than I’ve had wanted. Sure, I’ve been frustrated.
“Kortney Hause & I were having a good conversation a few days ago about how tough these things are & concluded….There’s no alternative than to keep getting up and putting one foot in front of the other.
“See you all in pre season.”
The expectation is that Clement Lenglet will not see his loan stint made permanent, and although there is a chance that Unai Emery opts to strengthen in that area of the squad with a new face, Mings will return and compete with Pau Torres for a starting berth in that left-sided centre-half position.
That said, given what we’ve seen from Emery this past year in terms of his tactical flexibility, the pair could play together at times too, and so it will no doubt be a massive boost for Villa to have Mings back given the leadership, physicality and presence that he also adds to the backline.
It will be a significant test for the England international though to prove that he’s come back strong from his setback, and particularly with Villa now competing at a higher level, Emery and his staff will need to be fully convinced that he’s capable of being a key figure for us moving forward and that we won’t have to look elsewhere.
Villa’s pre-season gets underway on July 17 when we face Walsall, before we travel to the USA for the bulk of our preparations the following week.
