Tyrone Mings reaction to Gerrard snub, Coutinho form and Morgan Sanson's bleak Aston Villa future
Latest Aston Villa news and views via BirminghamLive brings you the big talking points from what was a dramatic day on the south coast for all of the wrong reasons against Bournemouth
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It was a rude awakening for Steven Gerrard on Saturday as Scott Parker’s plucky Bournemouth put Aston Villa to the sword. Jefferson Lerma scored after just 116 seconds to get the hosts’ tails up before Kieffer Moore wrapped things up with a well-placed header just nine minutes from time.
Here, Ashley Preece picks out some of the talking points from what was an opening-day shocker from Villa at the Vitality Stadium. You can have your say in the comments section here.
WHAT NEXT FOR TYRONE?
Let’s address the elephant in the room and Gerrard’s most-telling comments afterwards on Saturday involved around Tyrone Mings’ omission. The head coach seemed to suggest that Mings’ reaction to having the armband taken off him this past week was “a little bit” to do with him being dropped from the starting XI. “When Tyrone is back at his best and looks me in the eye and shows me he’s ready to play, he’ll get opportunities,” Gerrard said, with the manager outlining last week that Mings was still feeling “raw” and “disappointed” by his decision to name John McGinn as the club’s new skipper.
Villa lacked a real leader on Saturday; nobody was barking orders when the going got tough while a fair few in light blue simply lost their heads as Bournemouth came flying out of the blocks. One of Mings' best traits is also winning the first contact at set-pieces, something Villa really struggled with on Saturday.
READ MORE: Aston Villa player ratings as Ramsey and Coutinho struggle in sobering Bournemouth defeat
READ MORE: Aston Villa boss Steven Gerrard sends message to Tyrone Mings after Bournemouth defeat
You can’t help but feel with Mings having a real point to prove after losing the captaincy that the 29-year-old could well have been the perfect fit to come in, to bite down on his gum shield and to drive Villa towards a positive result against his former club. Mings, meanwhile, was quiet on Saturday. He was the last player to head in after the warm-ups while, on the bench, it was Ashley Young who was the most vocal as he tried to get his teammates going. We’ll now see what plays out for Mings in the upcoming weeks given Gerrard’s quite direct ‘look me in the eye’ comments.
TWO WINS IN LAST 12 NOW
To the match itself and the defeat made it two wins (vs Norwich, Burnley) in 12 for Gerrard stretching back to last season, while it’s now just six wins in 23. Villa Analytics via Twitter has also pointed out that Gerrard’s Premier League win rate now stands at 34.5% at 1.2 points per game, which is worse than Dean Smith’s final year in the job prior to Gerrard replacing him last November.
Gerrard, 42, has continued to stress how there should be “no excuses” now and that his squad “have been drilled enough to know how the style should look” following a full and busy pre-season. This past week, Ollie Watkins spoke specifically about Gerrard’s “identity” and how he wants his players to perform. However, just like last week against Rennes, Villa failed to deal with balls into their box while, in attack, the final ball and the decision making was lacking once again.
What was a real frustration on Saturday was Villa's defenders and midfielders pumping high and hopeful balls up to Danny Ings on the halfway line who had Jefferson Lerma, Chris Mepham and Lloyd Kelly to deal with. Despite a real lack of height given Ings, Philippe Coutinho and Leon Bailey all started in attack, a total of 32 crosses were put into Bournemouth’s box with only nine of them meeting a Villa shirt. In stark contrast and, despite having the powerful Moore and Dominic Solanke up front, Bournemouth put in just eight crosses and scored from one off Kelly’s ball in for Welshman Moore to put the game to bed.
It all feels a little disjointed at present. There was just no real cohesion on Saturday and, in the weeks to come, that needs to change. And quick. A home win next week against Everton will, however, instantly lift the mood. It's Palace away after that - the scene of an impressive win for Gerrard last season - before tricky fixtures against West Ham (h), Arsenal (a) and Man City (h) as we then enter September. It'll be fascinating to see where Villa are in a month's time.
COUTINHO WAS OFF IT
“I think I know a little bit about Phil Coutinho, yeah, if that’s the question you’re asking me...” was Gerrard’s blunt response to the following question put to him: ‘Coutinho moved central in the second half, do you know his best position?’
The Brazilian has been a constant favourite ever since joining and, to date, has started 17 of Villa’s last 20 matches. Coutinho was really disappointing on Saturday. He lost the ball 15 times while his passing was way off (79% completion).
“I don’t think he was at his best,” Gerrard conceded. “Phil will be the first one to admit that but, when we were 1-0 down and chasing it, it was important to keep all of our creation on the pitch. We certainly had the personnel and the talent on the pitch but our quality was certainly off and Phil was one of them people. He wasn’t the only one.”
Villa supporters will want to see more - much more - from the £17million summer signing with Emi Buendia currently playing second fiddle to the ex-Barcelona man in terms of being Gerrard's favoured left-sided playmaker.
KAMARA SHINING LIGHT
Now one player who did well on Saturday was Boubacar Kamara. The Frenchman was picked out for praise by Gerrard in his post-match interview. Kamara completed 60 of his 64 passes in midfield (94%) and won half of his duels (14/28), while the 22-year-old made a game-high 14 ball recoveries, five of which were in his own half as he stopped a series of Bournemouth attacks. The problem Kamara had, though, was that those next to him - John McGinn and Jacob Ramsey - really struggled to impose themselves. Kamara was possibly the only positive to take from Saturday, other than knowing the 2-0 defeat should act as a massive wake-up call to Gerrard, his coaching staff and players.
LIVERPOOL FRIENDLY CANNED
And lastly, Villa have cancelled their pre-arranged friendly with Liverpool today (Sunday) at Anfield due to no longer needing match minutes. “It’s not going ahead,” explained Gerrard. “We put that game in if we thought we needed that but today’s performance shows that it wasn’t about energy or fitness or application. I think we’ve run hard and given a lot to the game physically. It’s technical, set-piece wise and the final third. I don’t think we need another game to give out minutes. We’ve given enough opportunities so we took the game [vs Liverpool] away.”
One player who was probably pencilled in to play at Anfield was Morgan Sanson who, as soon as Villa’s team news dropped on Saturday, took to Instagram to post the following message from home: “100 percent fit [tick] and ready for the team… [wink face].”
BirminghamLive asked Gerrard about Sanson’s message. He said: “Yeah, he was fit, yeah! That was my decision...”
As we know, Gerrard has previously stressed his desire to further strengthen Villa’s midfield area and, with Sanson completely left out of his 20-man squad on Saturday, it doesn’t particularly bode well for the former Marseille man who could well find himself on the Villa scrapheap alongside others that are deemed surplus to requirements with Frederic Guilbert, Marvelous Nakamba, Bertrand Traore and Anwar El Ghazi all not involved once again.
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