A lot of Aston Villa fans are agreeing with former defender Martin Laursen’s comments in the Athletic criticising current centre-back, Tyrone Mings.
Laursen made 91 appearances for Villa, per Transfermarkt, and the experienced Danish centre-back believes that the Englishman has made mistakes and does not look like he is always focused during matches.
“I’ve just seen this big guy, who was strong, quick, great with his left foot and great on the ball. He has everything to be a great centre-half”, he said.
“But he can do better. For me, it’s very important if the centre-half is focused and doesn’t make as many mistakes.”
Obviously, Mings has been called up to the England squad this season by manager Gareth Southgate. Still, if you look at some of his defensive statistics on WhoScored in comparison with his teammates, Ezri Konza and Bjorn Engels, you see that he actually has on average the least tackles per game and interceptions per game. Indeed, even though he clearly has moments that are worthy of a national call-up, there is still room for improvement.
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His mistake earlier this season against Manchester City also backs up Laursen’s point and perhaps if he could maintain focus for the whole 90 minutes, the club might have conceded less than 56 goals in the Premier League this season, per SofaScore, the most in the division.
Here’s what fans had to say following the comments:
Martin Laursen: “Sometimes I think he (Tyrone Mings) does too many mistakes. It looks like he’s not focused all the time. For me it’s always been very important that the centre-half is very focused and concentrated.” [the athletic] #avfc
— villareport (@villareport) March 26, 2020
Get him in as assistant does more then terry
— avfcjames18 (@James74636443) March 26, 2020
The Danish god has spoken
— Jack (@JackWillis54) March 26, 2020
Martin Laursen needs to be listened to
— Paul (@PBSmith1972) March 26, 2020
Now, that is constructive feedback; invaluable if it is listened to makes his game better
— Gav1827 (@GV18271) March 26, 2020
Lauren is bang on, because Mings is so popular he has been given quite an easy ride.
He’s a very good player but has shown he’s prone to mistakes too often.
Noticed that he doesn’t seem as vocal as he was at the start of the season when organizing the defence.— Gary Glasgow (@GPDecorating) March 26, 2020
Absolutely spot on, and if Martin Laursen can see it and say that, why not Smith and Terry?
— 🇬🇧🇬🇧 Simon H 🦁 🦁 (@smnhndmch) March 26, 2020
