Unai Emery has reiterated that he would like to play both Tyrone Mings and Pau Torres together in his Aston Villa line-up.
Following the serious knee injury that Mings suffered in our opening game of last season, the Villa centre-half spent over a year on the sidelines going through his rehabilitation and recovery.
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The 31-year-old has now returned to competitive first-team action, with three appearances across all competitions thus far, as Emery continues to steadily and gradually bring him back into the fold.
As of yet though, Mings hasn’t played alongside Torres, as given their natural role as the left-sided centre-half, Emery has opted to replace the Spaniard with the Villa stalwart when he has come back into the side.
Having shown a desire to play with three centre-backs in his defence for some time though with Torres, Diego Carlos and Ezri Konsa featuring together relatively often, it’s not a new concept for Villa, and Emery reiterated this week that work is continuing at the training ground to potentially pair Mings and Torres together moving forward.
“We need time, last season we started the pre-season practising things like that,” Emery told reporters, as per BirminghamLive. “Mings got injured against Newcastle and, of course, we are now starting again with both players being available.
“I would like to play with both players in the starting XI, but we have to build a structure and this will take time. We need time practising in the training sessions and in matches.
“I am very happy with both players, very, very happy. Tyrone Mings played a fantastic match against Brentford after the first he played more or less feeling comfortable. The match against Brentford he felt better and was getting confidence in himself. He is ready to play feeling like he was feeling comfortable against Brentford.
“Pau Torres is helping us a lot in the idea and style we have. They are a little bit different. Tyrone is a bit stronger (physically) in everything, but Pau has high quality in the build-up.
“Both have possibilities to improve. Tyrone Mings, before his injury he was playing with confidence in our idea and style. Pau Torres, to be stronger in duels, he is working on it. They are both in good shape and in my mind they are available to play and successfully.”
There is a possibility that Mings comes back into the Villa starting line-up this weekend against Nottingham Forest, with his physicality and steeliness perhaps better suited to combating the threat posed by Chris Wood.
However, as noted by Emery above, there are times where Torres will be the preferred option given his technical quality and composure plays a fundamental part in our ability to play out from the back and set the tempo to control games, and so it’s positive competition and alternative solutions to have.
Naturally though, some will raise question marks over having two left-footed centre-halves in the backline as it may well disrupt the balance we usually have, and so it will be interesting to see if we possibly deploy one of these two at left-back and have Matty Cash push forward on the opposite flank so we drop into a back-three in possession, just as we have done when Konsa is asked to play at right-back.
It promises to be another fascinating tactical wrinkle that gives Emery more flexibility and depth, and hopefully we’ll see it work effectively if the Basque tactician opts to go down that road in the future.