Aston Villa are currently situated in the bottom half of the Championship table.
Steve Bruce has suggested that Aston Villa’s summer signings have perhaps struggled since their arrival at the club because no amount of Championship experience can prepare you for playing for the Villans, the Express and Star reports.
The likes of Albert Adomah, Ross McCormack, Jonathan Kodjia and Aaron Tshibola all arrived in the summer as Villa spent over £50m on trying to build a squad capable of securing an instant return to the Premier League.
Aston Villa’s Ross McCormack
However, the previously-mentioned quartet were signed from fellow Championship clubs and boasted no previous experience of playing at the highest level.
And after Villa’s underwhelming start to the campaign, Bruce has suggested that the expectations at the club may have come as something of a surprise to their newest acquisitions.
Aston Villa manager Steve Bruce
“I can understand what the club have done, they bought good players who’ve done well in the Championship,” he said, as reported by the Express and Star.
“But playing for Fulhams, Bristols, Hulls, Boltons, is not playing for a big club like this. You have to adapt to it. Because there’s such a big demand on you, an expectation, that’s what you have to deal with.
Though the team still find themselves in the bottom-half of the division, the signs suggest that Bruce is beginning to turn things around.
Villa are unbeaten in their first five games under their new boss and now find themselves just five points adrift of the top six, so there appears to be absolutely no reason why they cannot continue to put their poor start behind them.
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