Aston Villa boss Steve Bruce believes there is one main problem holding Aston Villa back – take heed Henri Lansbury.
Manager Steve Bruce could hardly hide his delight as Aston Villa edged past Queens Park Rangers on Tuesday evening to record a seventh win in eight league games, the Birmingham Mail reports.
Another Jonathan Kodjia winner, plus another clean sheet, means Villa have a realistic chance of finishing the season in the top half. When you consider that successive relegations did not appear too unrealistic just two months ago, that in itself is quite an achievement.
Yet, Bruce knows that if Villa are to push for promotion next season after a year of consolidation, they need to improve with the ball at their feet.
“If we’re being honest we have to look after the ball better,” Bruce told the Birmingham Mail after Villa recorded just 31 and 39 per cent possession in recent wins against Norwich and QPR.
“We made hard work of it, we became a bit edgy and gave the ball away in bad areas towards the latter part of the game.
“On the big stage and in the big arena we made too many silly mistakes late on, give the ball away, bad mistakes bad choices and the higher you go of course you get punished for things like that.”
And one player in particular should take heed of Bruce’s warning. The fact that Henri Lansbury has not scored or assisted a single goal in 13 games since arriving from Nottingham Forest in January is concerning enough but, in the last two games, he has only completed 65 per cent of his attempted passes.
Yes, the 26-year-old’s role is to create and open up defences, meaning he plays a higher proportion of risky balls than many of his team-mates, but Bruce will still want to see more care and composure in possession in the coming weeks.
Lansbury is a hugely important part of Villa’s plans going forward. His Championship pedigree proves that he is one of the best midfielders available at this level but, in the last two games, he has given the ball away 24 times.
That is clearly an area to improve.
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