Aston Villa and Leeds United are Championship promotion rivals this season.
Talksport pundit Danny Murphy has dismissed the suggestion that Aston Villa are a truly big club – in contrast to Leeds United.
The Villans, who have seven top-flight titles, as many FA Cups and a European Cup to their name, currently find themselves in England’s second tier having been relegated for the first time in 29 years last term.
A poor start to the campaign left them closer to the bottom of the league than the top at the start of October, at which point Steve Bruce was appointed manager in place of Roberto Di Matteo.
Bruce’s Villa have since gone six games unbeaten, however – the first time the club has done so since the 2009-10 season – and are being discussed as promotion candidates once more, despite sitting 16th in the table.
But asked if Bruce can establish the Villans as one of England’s biggest clubs again, Murphy replied: “It gets bandied about a lot that, big club. They’ve got good support, yeah, but I never played at a full Villa (Park). It was very rarely ever full when I played there when they were in the Premier League – this so-called big club.
“Big clubs are where the stadium is full every week, season ticket waiting lists – Tottenham, Liverpool. Villa, yeah, the history’s good – they won a European Cup, won a few titles back in the day – but they’ve not been a big club for a long time. We fall into this trap.
“I actually didn’t particularly like playing at Villa, it was quite a dull… it very rarely had a great atmosphere apart from a League Cup quarter final we won 4-3 in the last minute with 6,000 Liverpool fans in the away end. It wasn’t a ‘wow’ club for me.
“It’s like a lot of clubs who fall by the wayside… Leeds are down there, that was always full. That was a big club. That was a proper game. Villa was never a big game, not to us it wasn’t.”
He added: “The Villa support base is there, they just don’t turn up enough because they’re not seeing what they want to see, which is fair enough.”
Leeds, in contrast to Villa, have spent the past 12 seasons outside of the top flight, which they have won on three occasions as well as one FA Cup.
Garry Monk’s side are currently seventh in the Championship, however, four points above the Villans, who they welcome to Elland Road next weekend.
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