Steve Bruce: Aston Villa can’t keep being ‘cannon fodder’ on their travels

You suspect that wasn’t quite the phrase the manager was looking for yesterday morning, when discussing how other teams naturally raise their game when Villa roll into town.

Regardless, it was the one he used and there is perhaps none better to describe the club’s away results during the past few years. A return of just five wins in their last 46 away league fixtures rather tells its own story.

The problem is far from a new one and though Bruce’s own record compares quite favourably with many of his recent predecessors, it is one he is under increasing pressure to solve.

Back-to-back wins and four goal hauls at home to Norwich and Wigan might have transformed the mood around Villa Park but Friday night at Ashton Gate remains the acid test.

“If we think we’re out the woods yet, we’re not,” said Bruce. “We’ve had a good week and that’s it.

“Now we have to address this horrible form that’s haunted us for years. We have to live up to expectations.”

Now more than 10 months into the job, Bruce knows there is no simple solution to Villa’s away day blues.

“If I could put my finger on it and press a button I would do it right this minute,” he said. “Certainly we have got to address it and talk about it. Essentially it is a mentality thing.

“Mentally we have to improve away from home. We are everyone’s cannon fodder in this division. For most clubs our visit is the biggest game of the season, I would have thought.”

The summer arrival of John Terry was supposed to make Villa a more formidable unit on the road.

And though initial results – convincing defeats at Cardiff and Reading – have not matched the expectation, Bruce remains convinced the former England international will, in time, help build a winning culture at a club where losing had almost become accepted.

“You almost have to see past the results at the moment, anyone can get beat,” said Bruce. “John’s influence in the last five weeks, I am convinced, will rub off on the young players.

“They will look at him and see that is how we have to be, that is how we have to train, that is how we should behave.

“John has had a winning mentality all of his life. He is used to winning and that is one of the key things about him.

“The club, for me, has been beaten too often. When I arrived it was almost accepted by everyone: ‘We got beaten again, so what?’

“We have to turn that round if we are going to be successful.”

Bruce must choose between James Bree and Ritchie De Laet to replace Alan Hutton at right-back, with the Scot set to miss out with an ankle injury.

Tottenham loanee Josh Onomah is poised to return after recovering from a head injury, while teenage star Keinan Davis has shaken off a hamstring complaint and should start up front.