Keith Wyness: Steve Bruce has the 'big personality' to lead Aston Villa promotion push

Wyness, who was brought in last summer after Tony Xia bought the club from Randy Lerner, says Villa need leaders 'after all that has happened to the club over the last four or five years'. And he says the pressure is very much on to get Villa back to the top flight next year.

"My vision was always to change Villa back to what it should be – paying respect to the heritage, the tradition of Villa but also to take it forward for it to be a modern club again and really change the culture internally to get us back to being winners again, back to being innovators again.

"I think we're starting to see signs of that happening as we move forward. It's now about bedding things in and giving people stability and the chance to go ahead and get results."

Asked about the pressure to return Villa to the top echelons of football, Wyness said Villa were every bit as big a club as Spurs or Everton and should be competing to be in the Premier League top six.

"Next season's very important, yes," he added. "I'm not going to shy away from that at all. I think we really want to try to do everything we can to try to get up next year. It will be an important season, we have got a great squad, there's no excuses for us not to go up."

But Wyness backed Bruce to be the man to fire their promotion bid.

"He has that strength of character, he's got a big personality that demands respect from the players.

"The team has got that Steve Bruce stamp on it now."