Bruce has won promotion with both Birmingham and Hull, but he accepts that it will be difficult to repeat the trick this season.
Steve Bruce has admitted that he is realistic about Aston Villa’s chances of promotion this season and says that any hopes rest upon his team maintaining their impressive recent form, as reported by the club’s official Twitter account.
Villa appeared much more likely to endure successive relegations than an immediate return to the top flight in the opening weeks of the season under Roberto Di Matteo, with their expensively assembled squad failing to gel as they quickly stumbled way off the pace.
As it stands, Newcastle United and Brighton are pulling away from the chasing pack in the automatic qualification places but the rest of the table is far more open, with Villa just five points behind Leeds United in sixth.
And Bruce accepts that the Midlands giants may have left themselves with too much to do to catch the league leaders, with the mill of the play-offs a more likely target.
“When I walked through the door six weeks ago, I said I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t think we could mount a challenge,” Bruce told reporters ahead of Friday night’s away trip to Brighton, as reported by the club’s official Twitter account..
“Now, it might be above us to do it automatically because Newcastle and Brighton have had wonderful starts so they’re going to be very difficult to catch.
“However, a month ago when I took over, we were in the bottom three and now, all of a sudden, we’re five, six points the promotion spaces because we’ve had a decent run.
“It’s up to us to make sure that decent run continues, there’s a lot of games still to play.”
The early weekend trip to the AMEX should offer an intriguing yardstick as to how much Villa have improved since Bruce took over in October, with Chris Hughton’s side thumping five past Norwich in front of their home supporters last time out.
However, Villa are unbeaten since the former Birmingham boss took charge five games ago, meaning they can approach an ominous fixture with optimism – an unthinkable notion not long ago.
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