Bruce – Reading Mistakes, Now Fulham

Manager Steve Bruce has admitted Aston Villa simply made too many mistakes in the defeat to Reading and now he’s looking for a response against Fulham.

Hosting Jaap Stam’s side at Villa Park for the first of two Easter fixtures, another characteristically poor performance from the side was devoid of some of the luck we’ve had lately in the winning run and simply put they were just more dangerous and productive with the ball than we were.

With James Chester levelling things up at one all after we lost the sixth minute goal, Reading went on to add two more to take the three one defeat and Bruce wasn’t the only one disappointed at the full time whistle.

Speaking to the Official Site in his post game press conference, a disappointed gaffer knew we only had ourselves to blame.

‘We have made far too many mistakes and it`s turned into one of those awful days. We have made more errors today than we have in the past two months. Unfortunately we never recovered. It got worse as the afternoon wore on. We gave ourselves a mountain to climb in the first half and we then did it again straight from the kick-off. Reading punished us.’

With a penalty shout on the day, Bruce knew it would’ve been a turning point.

‘I have seen them given. I think the referee has obviously looked at it and seen it as ball to hand. We think it is a penalty. It would have been a big turning point in the game.’

Pressed more on our errors and mistakes in the game, he went on to say.

‘The one thing we have prided ourselves on in this good run has been our ability to keep a clean sheet. All of a sudden that has gone out of the window with some awful, awful mistakes.’

With Neil Taylor and Mark Bunn missing from the match day squad, Bruce confirmed they’d both picked up injuries.

‘They were out through injury. Neil has a groin problem and Mark has a knee issue. We will see how they are on Sunday.’

With Fulham next up on Monday afternoon, Bruce knew it would be tough with the quick turn around in time between both games but we had to show a reaction to this performance and defeat.

‘We have been asked to play twice in 48 hours which is a huge disadvantage. We will deal with it. We don`t want to start making excuses. We have Fulham, who are arguably the form side at the moment. We have to make sure we are ready and be in the best physical condition that we can.’

That of course led to questions about rotation.

‘The lads have picked themselves over the last few weeks because they have put a hell of a good run together. We will see what they are like on Sunday. I want us to finish strongly. I don`t want the season to peter away. We have the derby with Blues coming, the potential champions Brighton on the last day of the season…so it`s all still to play for.’