Bruce rues Villa absentees after loss to Fulham

Posted Sunday, February 18, 2018 by PA

Steve Bruce admitted Aston Villa missed Albert Adomah and Jack Grealish as they fell 2-0 at Fulham.

Defeat meant Bruce’s side slipped to third in the table, missing out on an eighth straight win.

With the pair injured, two second-half goals left Bruce to lament a weakened squad in a game that also saw Ahmed Elmohamady injured.

“Losing Ahmed was a cruel blow, as well as losing Albert and Jack. They give us the penetration and the forward threat,” he said.

“Those two have been the catalyst for me for what we’ve achieved, especially Grealish in the middle of the pitch.

“We lacked that creativity today, which we’ve had in abundance in the last few weeks.

“They’re a good side, Fulham, they’ve got some good players – they’re one to beat, I predicted that at the start and I still think the same way.

“I always thought it was going to be whoever was going to get the first goal, but there was nothing in it and you could see a bit of quality from them in the wide area.”

Fulham pulled themselves within four points of Villa with a deserved victory.

The deadlock was broken six minutes after the break, when Ryan Fredericks found space down the right and was able to square into the box for Ryan Sessegnon – who calmly connected first time to drill past Sam Johnstone.

Victory was effectively sealed on 71 minutes for the home side, although it came from an awful error by Villa keeper Johnstone.

The shotstopper took a kick while outside his area but only found the feet of Floyd Ayite, who was stationed just inside the opposition half. He was able to take a first time shot into the unguarded net, leaving Johnstone stranded.

With their 10th game unbeaten, Fulham look set to repeat the run that took them into the playoffs last season but manager Slavisa Jokanovic believed he would need to call on his entire squad in the run-in.

“We played with confidence but we cannot think the job is done. We must show solidarity and work together,” he said.

“All the squad will be needed, not just the players who started today but those on the bench and in the stand.

“In the second half we tried something a little bit different, we scored two goals and we could have scored some more. We must be satisfied with our performance, we played very good football (but) it is only three points.”