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Steve Bruce has launched a passionate defence of his playing style and roared: Just watch us go now!

The Villa boss admitted that his systems in the past have been set up to avoid defeat rather than to excite and entertain.

Bruce assessed the squad when he arrived last October and felt that he didn’t have the tools to play the attractive brand of football that supporters have craved.

He conceded that he got it wrong in January by trying to ‘open Villa up’ but is convinced the group he now has at his disposal can get results as well as please those on the terraces.

“What I will say to everyone is my first priority last year was to stay in the division, never mind who we are,” he said.

“We were in an awful place, a team who had won five times in 18 months.

“I’ll make no bones about it, difficult to beat, difficult to play, organised on a defensive structure – that is the way I thought would take us forward, to try and stop the culture of getting beat.

“I tried to open things up in January, too quickly.

“I brought people in – Lansbury, Hourihane and Hogan – who had the top statistics in the division. It has taken them a little bit of time to adjust and settle into what Villa is.

“I make no bones about it.

“I just think now, where we are at this moment, I have a squad capable of mounting a challenge.”

Villa’s win at Barnsley last time out has lifted spirits and Bruce rested all 11 players in midweek to keep them fresh for tomorrow’s clash with Nottingham Forest.

He’s expected to name an unchanged team for the first time this season which means Jonathan Kodjia partnering Keinan Davis in an exciting two-pronged attack.

But why has the manager been so cautious to operate with two strikers on the pitch in previous times?

When asked about playing on the front-foot, he said:

“I hear it against me.

“But I have played two up top in this division.

“I did it at Hull. A lot of people play two up top and three at the back. It has become very fashionable. I did that six years ago to win promotion at Hull.

“I didn’t think as a club we had it in ourselves, in my opinion.

“The statistics show that when I opened things up and tried to play that way, we got beat.

“I have gone to a 4-3-3.

“To play on the front foot? I have always tried to do that but that is where my thinking has been.

“Now I have Kodjia, the emergence of young Keinan, Snodgrass, Elmohamady.

“All the people I have tried to bring here are people to put us on the front foot.

“In that respect now the aim is to go and get a few results which will breed a bit of confidence and play in a certain way.”