When Tyrone Mings suffered an anterior cruciate ligament injury in the opening game of last season, nobody needed to tell him that it would be a long road back. Unfortunately, the Aston Villa and England defender has experienced it before. It was not pretty.
It was at Bournemouth, soon after becoming their club record signing, that Mings damaged his anterior and medial ligaments minutes into his Premier League debut. That was almost a decade ago now and it sent Mings spiralling into a dark place.
He has since spoken of how he sought comfort in alcohol, was consumed by the feeling that he had lost everything, the thought of a life without a football threatening his whole identity. He has told the tale of how he broke down in tears in Eddie Howe’s office.
Saturday 14th December 5:00pm
Kick off 5:30pm
This time around, older and wiser, he was always going to approach the challenge very differently. “It has been different. I would not say it has been easier. It is just that I have a little more perspective. I have kids now so that always helps,” Mings tells Sky Sports.
“When I was at Bournemouth, it was a very uncertain time. I was still trying to make my way in the game and trying to prove to the fans that I would be a good signing. So the timing of it was really difficult to take. This time has been difficult for different reasons.
“I felt like I was playing well when I got injured. I felt like I was trying to establish myself in the manager’s idea and the team were doing well. So it was a tough time to sit out and see other people build on all the work we had put in together over the previous years.”
Mings has a routine now, one that includes speaking to his therapist regularly, keeping him in the right head space. The days when his extra-curricular activities were counter-productive are over. That energy has been successfully channelled in a positive way.
“Every waking minute was spent trying to figure out how I’m going to get my knee better,” he stresses. But there is his involvement with the Tyrone Mings Academy in Bristol, helping to provide fun opportunities for children in the region. And new interests too.
Through the PFA, he has taken a global football business management course. “I have really learned about what it means to be a sporting director or a CEO so they will not be new things when I retire. I am certainly not scared of what comes after football.”
Tyrone Mings has been taking a course preparing for life after hanging up the boots
Nor should he be. Mings has always been an articulate spokesman, whether explaining the reasons for players taking the knee in opposition to racism or countering the claims of then health secretary Matt Hancock that footballers needed to give back more.
Now 31, he cuts a confident and measured figure. Success will come post-retirement. But there are still ambitions to fulfil on the pitch and he is fortunate that while he was out with injury, Villa continued to go from strength to strength under Unai Emery.
The team he returns to is one not only competing in the Champions League but thriving in it, while continuing to claim their spot towards the top end of the Premier League table. As a result, the motivation for Mings is easy. New opportunities keep coming up.
“People are always looking for new ideas, new stimuli, so the Champions League has certainly given a different feeling around the club. You see it for the fans at Villa Park or at away games. It is certainly a different feeling and the players feel that as well.
“It did not really drive me through rehab as it felt so far away from where I was at the time. I still had a lot of hurdles to overcome to get back on the football pitch. But now I am here and part of it, it is a special time in the club’s history and it adds something.”
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England Beno Obano invites Tyrone Mings into the sauna to quiz him on his career
For Mings, released by Southampton as a youngster, his mother writing to every club in the Football League in the hope of kickstarting his career only for him to progress the hard way via spells at Yate and Chippenham, it has been an amazing journey.
Maybe that makes it that bit more special for him when the Champions League music plays. He has won 18 caps for England, featuring at Euro 2020, but Europe’s premier club competition still represents another high, another marker on his route to the top.
It is true of a number of Villa’s senior players. Ollie Watkins came through Exeter City’s academy, making his Premier League debut at 24. Emiliano Martinez was still playing for Reading at the age of 26. One wonders whether it is one of the secrets of their success.
“There are a few players with quite a lot of Champions League experience but it is new as a team, it is new as a group, it is new that we are doing it together. Quite a lot of the players also have bought into the journey that we have been on for so long now.”
He talks of winning a trophy with Villa. “Big on everybody’s to-do list here.” And the feeling that they can “achieve something special together” – calling this as an “exciting time” and speaking of wanting to replicate Villa’s glorious successes of the past.
Unai Emery says Tyrone Mings’ error was the ‘biggest mistake’ he has witnessed in his career
Last month, he made his Champions League debut. It was an inauspicious one, picking up the ball in error to concede the penalty from which Club Brugge scored the only goal of the game. Emery called it one of the worst errors that he has seen made in football.
A serious injury on his Premier League debut. A serious error on his Champions League debut. Life keeps throwing things at him. “If there is something that is going to happen, it is usually going to happen to me,” he says, insisting that the error did not affect him.
“I do not participate in the extreme highs or extreme lows of the emotions in the game. I am fairly level-headed and I am fairly unflappable, I think, in terms of riding those emotions.” He then says something particularly revealing about the way he thinks now.
“I was not frustrated at what happened itself because mistakes happen. And I think if that was going to happen to anybody, I am happy that it happened to me because I am fairly sure I can cope with it. My next game after that was Brentford I think.”
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Highlights from the Premier League match between Aston Villa and Brentford
He had to wait a month, being an unused substitute for the next four games. But when he made his Premier League return after 16 months out, he was named player of the match in a 3-1 home victory over Brentford that ended a run of eight without a win.
“The thing about the Bruges game is that I never came away from that game feeling any differently than what I did when I played against Brentford and got man on the match.” It is surely a product of the long hours of work put into shaping his own mentality.
“The guy I use has been paid a monthly retainer since 2015,” he says of his therapist. “It is less to do with football now, more just about my well-being and about life in general. One of the learnings of my career is to be very calm when things happen in football.”
He adds: “When the Bruges incident happened, some people did not even bother texting me because they knew I would be fine. I can promise that regardless of whether we win 3-0 or lose 3-0, I will be the same person when the next game comes around.”
Every team needs players like that. As for Villa, they are fifth in the Champions League table. One more win would surely take them to the last 16. Beat Nottingham Forest on Saturday and they will move above Man City into fourth spot in the Premier League too.
“The most impressive thing last season was balancing the European football to allow us to get Champions League this year. The big challenge again is: how do you balance Champions League games without it affecting your Premier League form?
“I think teams historically who have broken into the Champions League have struggled with that due to squad size and emotions and travelling so I think the fact that we have been able to rotate the squad and the manager is very calm as well has helped.
“There was a period where we had a few bad results and it felt like everything was going against us but it is time to be calm and see the bigger picture. I think we can be proud of where we sit right now, both in the Champions League and the Premier League.”
Like the lows, Mings intends to take the highs in his stride. But he has come too far and worked too hard not to enjoy it. “There is a good feeling here. Being back and part of it is just as impressive and wholesome before. I was loving it before and I am loving it now.”
Watch Nottingham Forest vs Aston Villa live on Sky Sports Premier League this Saturday from 5pm; kick-off 5.30pm