Steve Bruce: I feared Aston Villa were set for League One

Villa face rivals Blues on Sunday having climbed into the Championship’s top six for the first time since suffering relegation from the Premier League 18 months ago.

And boss Bruce has now opened up on the genuine doubts he held about halting the ‘downward spiral’ which had seen the club lose its top flight status.

Villa were in the relegation zone when Bruce replaced Roberto Di Matteo 11 games into the league campaign last October.

And he said: “I thought we were nearer the other end than going upwards. That’s the brutal truth.

“Inwardly I thought I’ve got a job on my hands here and if we are not careful we could slip the other way. I make no bones about that.

“For six months all I did was make us difficult to beat, difficult to play against. That’s all.

“I didn’t care about entertaining. I didn’t care about anything, we had to get a few results and try and turn the whole thing around because, no, it wasn’t good.”

While Bruce always felt Villa’s squad was talented enough to survive, he was concerned by the losing culture endemic at the club.

“We had good players here, no question,” he said. “But the club had got into that downward spiral of being used to getting beat.

“It becomes the normal ‘Oh, Aston Villa have got beaten again, so what?’

“Sunderland, it’s the same situation there now, where it is very difficult, where they’ve got into that spiral of getting beaten too often and it becomes the norm.”

Villa head to St Andrew’s having won five of their last six games and Bruce, whose transfer dealings have been hampered somewhat by Financial Fair Play regulations, believes he now has a squad capable of sustaining a promotion challenge.

“In my opinion we have progressed. I was really pleased with the way we played against Fulham last week,” he said.

“We’ve got to be up there, we are Aston Villa. But we realise how difficult it is. Some people have invested £40-50million this summer and are in the bottom half of the division. That’s how hard the Championship is.

“I think we have the makings of a decent squad to cope with it. We’ve given ourselves a lift after the poor start we’ve had.

“It’s up to us to make sure over the winter, we’ve got to be there or thereabouts, in and around the top six, that’s what this club demands.

“Only now do I feel that I’ve got a squad of players capable of sustaining it. When I first arrived I didn’t think we were anywhere near it.”