Steve Bruce refusing to rule out Aston Villa's automatic promotion hopes
Steve Bruce refused to give-up on Villa’s hopes of automatic promotion despite watching his team falling to a second defeat in five days.
Saturday’s 1-0 defeat at Bolton left Villa seven points behind second-placed Cardiff and further dented their chances of chasing down the Bluebirds.
They could fall even further adrift with Cardiff set to visit Derby on Sunday and only eight games now remaining.
Bruce admitted Villa, who were beaten 3-1 at home by QPR last Tuesday, had now firmly handed the initiative to their rivals.
But he insisted their task is not yet Mission Impossible.
"We’ve lost two in five days and other teams are capable of that," he said.
“As I’ve said repeatedly, we need to win our games and we haven’t.
“We’ve had a wonderful opportunity against QPR and Bolton - no disrespect to either of them - but we haven’t took anything from it.
“In that respect we deserve to be where we are.
“We’ve got to give ourselves a chance but we’ve had a horrible five days.
“We’ve lost more games in five days than we have previously in three months.
“We’ll have to recover, still eight games to go, still all to play for, but we’ve certainly given the initiative to the others.
“In my experience, there’s still a few twists and turns to come.”
Adam Le Fondre’s 19th minute goal was enough to condemn Villa to defeat as Bolton eased their own relegation fears.
The match was played in often blizzard-like conditions on a snow covered pitch after conditions deteriorated an hour before kick-off.
Bruce admitted he may have picked a different starting XI if he had known the challenge both teams would face.
“If I had seen it coming down the way it did, I might have picked a different team,” he said.
“When we left the hotel it was a glorious afternoon, by the time it kicked off. When we came in from the warm-up there was grass.
“When we came back out there was two inches of snow. It was a difficult night.
“It was an awful night and I don’t want to make that an excuse but the conditions certainly didn’t help.
“We couldn’t play any sort of real football out there.
“They adapted to the conditions better than we did and it wasn’t a night for our wide players because they couldn’t run with the ball.
“It was a difficult night for all. We huffed and puffed but couldn’t find the breakthrough.”
