Steve Bruce hoping Aston Villa can overtake rivals in the final furlong

Friday night’s 1-0 win at Villa Park also kept alive their hopes of pipping Fulham and Cardiff, who both play on Saturday, to second spot.

But Bruce will instead be at Aintree to watch the Grand National, rather than keeping tabs on his team’s promotion rivals. Fulham host Brentford, while Cardiff go to Norwich.

Bruce said: “Whatever I do, I’m going to find out the results.

“The races is on the cards. I’ll see if I can pick a winner in the Grand National.

“I’ve said it many times, if we can lose a couple of games back-to-back then others can.

“That’s how the Championship is. We’re looking for two teams to dip but we can’t give up hope.

“We’ve done our job and put a bit of pressure on. Now can the others do us a favour? Fingers crossed.”

Lewis Grabban’s first-half header was enough to see Villa to their second home win in the space of four days.

Bruce admitted to being encouraged by his team’s response, after last Saturdays dire 1-0 loss at Norwich had prompted him to deliver a tongue-lashing.

“We went near the edge (after Norwich) and words were said,” he said. “When you go that close you hope you haven’t gone too far.

“Thankfully they have responded and agreed. We didn’t do the basics right at Norwich.

“Whether that was fatigue, or whatever, we didn’t reach the levels."

He added: “There were too many mistakes from both teams tonight but I still think we were very comfortable.

“I can’t remember my goalkeeper making too many saves.

“But overall, comfortable, just not our fluent best."

With three games remaining, the lowest Villa can now finish in the table is fifth.

Asked about a likely tilt at the play-offs, Bruce replied: “If it goes that way, let’s look forward to the challenge,” he said. “They’re great games to be involved in if you can get past semi-finals, then Wembley.”