Tyrone Mings: Aston Villa need to be braver

Dean Smith’s men twice led at the Emirates and had the advantage of playing more than half of the match against 10 men when the hosts had Ainsley Maitland-Niles sent-off for two bookable offences.

But they ended up falling to a devastating loss as late goals from Calum Chambers and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang saw the Gunners snatch the points.

It meant that, for the second time in as many matches, Villa were unable to force home an advantage after seeing their opponents go a man down.

Defeat left them 18th in the Premier League table and Mings said: “It feels like when we go ahead there is desperation to hold onto the lead rather than going and getting another goal and really being ruthless.

“I don't know what it is at the moment but something needs to change, especially when we go either ahead or a man advantage. It seems to have the opposite effect. Maybe it's a mentality thing. Maybe we need to work on certain things.”

Villa led early through John McGinn’s opener and then saw their advantage almost immediately restored by Wesley, just past the hour mark, after Nicolas Pepe had levelled from the penalty spot.

But Arsenal took control in the final stages despite being a man down and Mings feels Villa paid the price for sitting back.

"We're a pressing team and we like to go and press. We just stopped doing that,” he said.

"As a team we need to be a bit braver and go and stop teams higher up the pitch, especially with a man advantage.

"But we said the same after Tottenham when we appeared to drop off so it's a tough one to take.

"I don't question the group of lads that we've got one bit.

"There's just certain elements of our game - and when certain things happen - it seems to affect us in a negative way, rather than a positive.

"The mentality we have has got us into the lead on two occasions.

"It's a natural thing to drop off when we've got a goal, but we need to start doing what we did when we got into the lead in the first place. It's been our downfall.”