Furious Aston Villa boss Steve Bruce slams 'ridiculous' mistakes in defeat

The boss was furious with his team’s performance in a 2-1 reverse at Griffin Park, which extended Villa’s winless run to five games and left them sitting outside the Championship play-off positions.

Bruce felt the showing was among the worst of his 14-month tenure and promised better from his team when they visit Middlesbrough this coming weekend.

“That (the performance) is what I inherited a year ago and I hoped it had gone away,” he said.

“We are only a week away from a crisis at this club. Everything is a crisis if we don’t win.

“We have to batten down the hatches and work hard at it.

“It is only two or three weeks ago we were in the thick of it. We are having our blip. Cardiff have had it, Sheffield have had it.

“It’s all to play for - it’s a difficult game at the weekend (at Middlesbrough) but the one thing for sure is we will be better. I don’t think we could be any worse.”

Brentford's Lasse Vibe got the winner, pouncing on some sloppy Villa defending, after substitute Josh Onomah had cancelled out Romaine Sawyers’s opener for the hosts.

Onomah was an early replacement for Albert Adomah, who became the latest player added to Villa’s lengthy injury list when he suffered a dead leg inside the opening ten minutes.

Bruce said: “It would be easy to blame injuries but I don’t want to make excuses. We still have 11 out there who should be producing better than that.

“We certainly weren’t good enough, with or without the ball.

“I thought performances like that had left us. Unfortunately it has crept back in again.

“The number of mistakes we have made lately, from experienced players, has been bordering on ridiculous.

“We are not doing the basics right and not playing well enough. With the ball especially. We gave it away numerous times.

“I thought I had seen the last of performances like that. But we need to be better.”