Villa have won just two home games all season, hardly the form befitting of a team with genuine play-off ambitions.
Steve Bruce has admitted that Aston Villa must improve their disappointing home form if they stand a chance of pushing for promotion this season, as reported by the club’s Twitter account.
Jonathan Kodjia’s acrobatic volley sealed a dramatic 1-0 win against Fulham in Villa’s last outing on home soil but that was just their first three point haul in front of their own supporters since August’s comfortable triumph over Rotherham.
Owen Coyle’s struggling Blackburn travel to Villa Park on Saturday as major underdogs against a Villa side who have been rejuvenated since promotion specialist Bruce replaced Roberto Di Matteo in the dugout, but the former Hull manager admits that sorting out the Midlands giants’ below-par home form is a must if they are to piece together a credible play-off challenge.
“[Villa Park] is one of the great stadiums to play football and it’s a big, wide open pitch so teams, in the past, have come over the last couple of years and enjoyed it because they’ve managed to get a few wins,” Bruce told reporters ahead of Saturday’s clash, as reported by the club’s official Twitter account.
“So it’s up to us to make sure that the home form is rock solid if we can. If we’re going to go and mount a challenge, which we need to, then our home form is going to be critical.
“In the last home game we nicked it in the last ten minutes, which you sometimes need to, you need to be patient, but I’m quietly confident.
“The more results the players get, then hopefully we’ll make Villa Park the fortress everybody wants it to be.”
With three of the league’s current bottom four, Blackburn, Wigan and Cardiff, all making the trip to the Midlands in the coming weeks, Bruce will know that his slowly improving charges have a superb opportunity to close the gap to the top half of the table.
As it stands, Villa are 15th but just two wins behind Bristol City in the final play-off spot.
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