Tyrone Mings makes 'history' point after night of Aston Villa redemption in Brugge

The defender delivered a superb performance in Tuesday night’s 3-1 win which put Unai Emery’s team on the brink of the Champions League quarter-finals, after returning to the scene of the most embarrassing moment of his career.

Mings became the butt of the joke when he conceded a penalty by picking up Emi Martinez’s goal kick during Villa’s 1-0 league phase defeat to Club Brugge at the Jan Breydelstadion in November.

But on Tuesday he was the hero thanks to a brilliant goal-line clearance when the scores were level at 1-1, with Villa then going on to score twice in the final eight minutes to seize control of the last-16 tie.

Matty Cash later revealed how Mings had been ribbed by his team-mates over the handball in the build-up to the re-match but the defender has no issue with the incident being remembered, believing he demonstrated his strength of character with his follow-up display.

He said: “It is important to bring it up because it is part of our history and part of what happened. 

“I have no problem, I have said since that if it was going to happen to anybody and be such a big talking point I’m happy for it to happen to me. You see the character to come here tonight and put in the shift we did was good.

“It’s impossible for it not to be (talked about) because everybody keeps bringing it up all the time. 

“When we saw the draw and knew we were coming here I was fully aware people were going to talk about it again, as they should because I think that game had 0-0 written all over it. 

“Unfortunately because of the penalty we came away losing last time so it was nice to come out on the right side of the big moments.”

Mings denied Hans Vanaken, the player who had netted the decisive penalty in November’s first meeting, from putting the hosts ahead on Tuesday night when he diverted his header around the post at full stretch.

Asked how much he knew about the clearance at the time, Mings replied: “I have made a few goalline clearances in my time at Villa, I can’t not know what I am doing every time. 

“At some point someone has to say ‘good clearance’. It’s instinct, as a defender when the ball goes over my head my natural reaction is to drop onto the line in case something like that happens. 

“If we did that another 10 times again, I’m not sure I’d be able to do it, make that fine of a touch to make it go around the post, but you don’t need to, you just need to do it at the time.”

Villa, who had earlier been pegged back after a Mings’ header had set up Leon Bailey to fire them into a third minute lead, went on to grab a two-goal advantage in the tie through a Brandon Mechele own goal and a Marco Asensio penalty.

Mings said: “I think both times here have been a night to remember, for different reasons. 

“I am fully aware it’s only half-time in the tie, it sounds like such a cliche but I don’t really feel much different tonight than I did when we left last time. 

“Our responsibility as players is to stay calm and not be too high or too low and I think it is really important for the fans to enjoy this moment. We have a healthy, but delicate lead going into the second leg. We will treat it with the adequate respect like we did tonight.”