Steve Bruce Takes Blame As Aston Villa's 3-1 Defeat to QPR Dents Promotion Hopes

Aston Villa manager Steve Bruce has admitted that he is responsible for his side's shock 3-1 defeat to Queens Park Rangers on Tuesday evening. 

Bruce named an unchanged side from their impressive 4-1 victory over league leaders Wolves at the weekend and has since admitted that he should have freshened things up.

He said after the defeat, as quoted by the Express and Star: ''It was always my fear. The euphoria of Saturday and my experience of it. I toyed and toyed with changing it.

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''In hindsight I should have done. I blame myself because I always thought it would be difficult to get the bandwagon rolling again. I thought long and hard about freshening us up and making four or five changes

''But the manner of Saturday weight against me. They have done so well. My experience tells me the third game in a week was too much. We never got started and before we did it was one of those awful evenings. It was after the Lord Mayor’s Show and we did not get anywhere near the heights of Saturday.''

The shocking result will have sent Villa crashing back down to earth after their result against Wolves, but the boss is still hopeful about them gaining automatic promotion.

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''There is still a long way to go. That is the thing about this division. You can get upsets like we have had tonight. That is what the Championship is. When you are not at it.

''With all of us in the run-in, it is about what you do. We made a mess of it tonight. It was always going to be hard. We have to get ready for Bolton on Saturday. There is another big weekend at Easter. There are five or six games in a month. That is always the defining month. We will see where they are then.''

With nine games to go Villa face an uphill battle to gain automatic promotion, but Bruce hopes that the experience of players like John Terry will help them to do so.