Tyrone Mings says the reaction to a social media clip of Harry Maguire during last week's training session with England is "ridiculous" and lacks context.
In a video posted on England's official YouTube channel, Gareth Southgate's side can be seen taking part in a rondo routine as the likes of Jude Bellingham, Kyle Walker-Peters and James Ward-Prowse played one-touch football at pace.
Jordan Henderson, meanwhile, was counting the amount of successful passes in the rondo when Maguire decided to stop the ball as Nick Pope approached. The Liverpool midfielder can be heard saying: "What are you doing?"
The clip picked up a huge amount of traction on social media, while Aston Villa centre-back Tyrone Mings, who was also part of the rondo that day, has lept to the defence of United captain Maguire.
After being asked by talkSPORT about the incident, Mings said: "I think it’s ridiculous really.
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"We got to about 45 passes and he stopped the ball and I can only presume, there’s no other reason to stop the ball at that point, it was to give the people in the middle a breather.
“Once you get to 20 passes you are in for another one, so the two that were in there anyway were going to be in for another two when it got to 42, 43.
“He’s actually giving them a bit of a breather to say ‘that’s enough, let’s start again’.
“So to take a negative spin on that just shows people don’t always know what is going on and don’t quite understand the full context of the video.
“But for social media these days the truth is sometimes far less exciting than making something up or sending something viral.”
In a press conference ahead of England's upcoming friendly against Ivory Coast on Tuesday night, Mings continued to defend his international teammate by saying the criticism of Maguire from the press and from pundits has been "extremely over the top."
“Listen, I know Harry as a player and I know him as a person, and I cant speak highly enough of him,” Mings said.
“I can’t speak highly enough if the responsibility he takes on his shoulders every single day to be Man United captain.
“He would have been chosen as captain for a reason and the reason would be for all the qualities you see come out of him day-in day-out, not forgetting he’s a fantastic footballer as well and one who has been a superb servant in the England shirt.
“I find the criticism of him extremely over the top.
“But then I understand that journalists and writers who sometimes write stuff like that and jump on the bandwagon is what sells papers or what gets clicks.
“So you guys – and I don’t mean to categorise everybody – but the people who write this stuff for sure have a job and feel like they’re doing to right thing because it’s topical and it’s cool to jump on the bandwagon, and it’s what you might thing people want to hear.
“But really I find it all to be misplaced.”
Topics: England, Harry Maguire, Tyrone Mings, Ivory Coast
Jack Kenmare