At the beginning of the season, Gerrard decided to strip Mings of the Aston Villa captaincy and dropped him in the Villa’s season opener against newly promoted Bournemouth, which ended in a 2-0 defeat for the Midlands club.
The Villa boss quickly restored the 29-year-old in the following game and Mings has featured in eight out of ten games for the club so far this season.
Keys is of the opinion that Gerrard handled the decision to dismiss the England star from the captaincy and the team three months prior to the 2022 World Cup poorly.
Aston Villa are in 16th place with only two wins from ten games, and Keys emphasised that Gerrard’s handling of the entire Mings affair has set the tone for the club’s season and destroyed his connection with his players as well.
“I mentioned in an earlier blog how I believed his fall-out with Mings had set the pattern for the season”, Keys wrote in his blog.
“He handled his decision to drop Mings really badly.
“I said at the time – if he’d called him into his office in May and told him to find a club I think most people would’ve understood that.
“It wouldve given the big fella time to sort himself out with another club.
“With the World Cup coming this is a big season for Mings and he obviously felt that he couldn’t sit on the bench for the first three months at Villa.
“As things have turned out, Mings has had games but Gerrard gave himself a problem he didn’t need when he embarrassed his captain on the opening day – although he was quick to defend Mings after his howler v Chelsea, but the damage to his relationship with Mings – and in the dressing room – had been done.”
Last season, Mings was handed the Villa captaincy after Jack Grealish left the club to join Manchester City.
