Tyrone Mings was really dominant – Steven Gerrard praises Aston Villa defender

Steven Gerrard praised the returning Tyrone Mings as Aston Villa claimed their first Premier League victory of the season with a 2-1 success against Everton.

Mings was stripped of the captaincy over the summer in favour of John McGinn and then eyebrows were raised when he was left on the bench during last weekend’s loss to Bournemouth.

Gerrard insisted that was primarily due to a minor injury and Mings returned to the starting line-up at Villa Park on Saturday.

“I certainly understand when you make a decision like that externally there’ll be a lot of noise,” said Gerrard.

“We think Tyrone Mings is a fantastic footballer with big attributes and he’s going to be a big help to me and the team moving forward. He was injured last weekend but today and building into this game he trained really well, his focus was there.

“I thought he was really good for large parts of the game today and really dominant and he played his part in a really important win for us.”

Gerrard was targeted for criticism after the meek 2-0 loss to Bournemouth but this was a much-improved performance, with Villa starting well and deservedly taking the lead through a fine strike from Danny Ings in the 31st minute.

They looked to have wrapped up the points when lively substitute Emiliano Buendia tapped in five minutes from time but Lucas Digne scored an own goal against his former club moments later and Everton had several chances to steal a point.

Gerrard said: “I think we deserved the external criticism (last week). But what we did do is we stayed calm and we used the week to prepare in the best way we can. We asked the players to go out and deliver a response and I think we got that across the board.

“I think when you get the Villa Park crowd and the