Tyrone Mings said that Aston Villa's first half performance against Tottenham was inexcusable
Tyrone Mings admitted that Aston Villa lacked "energy, passion, fight and desire" in their 2-1 defeat against relegation-threatened Tottenham.
Conor Gallagher and Richarlison put Spurs 2-0 up inside 25 minutes, before Emi Buendia halved the deficit in the 96th minute, although the scoreline flattered Villa.
Villa had not gone 2-0 down at home in a league match within the opening 25 minutes since February 2021 - until Sunday evening. Tottenham, meanwhile, had not gone 2–0 up that quickly in a league match since December 2024.
Mings, who was one of seven changes Unai Emery made following the 1-0 defeat at Nottingham Forest last Thursday, admitted that Villa fell well below the required standard in a post-match interview with TNT Sports.
“I was really disappointed with the first half,” Mings said. “Collectively, if you play for this football club, the energy, passion, fight and desire are an absolute minimum, and from one to 11 I don’t think that was there in the first half.
“I was frustrated with that. We pushed in the second half, but they had a good shape, they were tough to break down, tough to play against, and I think we deserved to lose in the end.”
Mings added: “It’s easy to point the finger at what it could be and what it might be, but I’m not making any excuses for delivering that first-half performance.
“A few words were said about how it fell below the standards we expect, but the manager was reiterating that where we are is a fantastic position. It’s been a huge effort up until now.
“We have a huge game on Thursday and we’ll try to pick the bones of what went wrong today and not do that again. It was frustrating for the fans; they come here to watch a high energy performance from a Villa team.
“There were a few changes and you’d say that we’d be fresh and get after them, but it was disappointing for the fans and a disappointing result.”