Comment: Character key to Aston Villa's revival under Dean Smith

The club’s list of achievements during its 145-year existence might be lengthy, yet it is difficult to find record of a player ever being praised in Parliament before.

For Mings, this truly has been an extraordinary week.

Though the headlines might have centred on the racist abuse he and team-mates were subjected to in Bulgaria, Mings’ insistence after the match that nothing could overshadow the experience of making his England debut was no mere soundbite.

That is genuinely how he feels and it speaks volumes about the character of a player who, in the space of less than 10 months, has seen his career completely transformed.

Nothing Mings did, either during or after the match, came as a surprise to anyone who has engaged with him since he first arrived from Bournemouth on loan in January.

Certainly not Dean Smith, who saw the maturity and leadership qualities Mings showed in Sofia when he and John Terry met with the defender shortly before that move.

“When you go and meet players, you know what they are going to bring football-wise,” said the Villa boss this week. “It is that personality and character you are looking to find out about.

“Tyrone is articulate, intelligent but he is a very good human being as well.”

Finding players with the right character is a core principle of Smith’s approach to team-building and Mings is far from the only player with those attributes in Villa’s dressing room.

Some, like Jack Grealish and John McGinn, were inherited by the current boss. Others, such as Tom Heaton and Marvelous Nakamba, arrived during a large-scale summer overhaul Villa were determined not to rush.

Smith will not make a decision on whether to push ahead with a signing until meeting the player personally. The chief qualities he is looking for are rather straightforward.

“Can they hold a conversation with me? That’s it, at least, first of all,” he said.

“There are a lot of people who can’t hold conversations and if you are going to get in the dressing room, you need to be able to do that.

“Unfortunately now there is too much social media and people playing on their phones, rather than socialising. Conversation, that is the biggest thing.”

It sounds a painfully simple concept, yet it is one frequently forgotten by clubs who put the importance of the player too far ahead of the person.

Villa themselves were guilty of that in 2015. In hindsight, the ill-fated summer which led to their disastrous relegation included the recruitment of some fine individual players. Idrissa Gueye and Jordan Veretout in particular have gone on to much bigger and better things.

At Villa the mix was never right and for all the money spent a team just never emerged. The dressing room quickly became divided.

For Smith, talent alone has never been sufficient. Players brought to the club during his tenure will need to fit in.

That does not mean he expects them all to think and act the same but they do need to buy into the culture and core values.

Having won promotion to the Premier League, the club were left facing a major rebuild with a limited amount of time to carry it out.

Finding players with already established links to the dressing room was a key aspect of their approach.

“They have all got links,” said Smith. Marvelous has got Bjorn Engels and Wesley who he has played with Bruges.

“Douglas Luiz and Wesley are good friends as well. There are a lot of links which have enabled them to settle in very quickly.”

Placing such an emphasis on character, while bringing back the likes of Mings, Anwar El Ghazi and Kortney Hause on permanent deals, was intended to help Villa retain the mentality which saw them surge back to the Premier League. Despite setbacks, the early signs are this Villa team is developing the identity the head coach intended.