Former Aston Villa striker Dwight Yorke believes that the club need to improve on their “negative mentality” in order to perform better in the Championship next season.
Last season, Villa competed in the second tier of English football for the first time since the 1987-88 season.
The Midlands club endured a tough campaign in the Championship as they failed to mount a serious promotion push and ended the season in 13th place, finishing a massive 18 points adrift of the final play-off place.
The club sacked manager Roberto Di Matteo at the start of October following a poor start to the campaign and Steve Bruce was the man chosen to replace him.
Speaking to the Birmingham Mail, Yorke believes that the club should be performing better in the league but he is confident that Bruce is the right man to lead them back to the Premier League.
“I played there for six months and I thought it was very easy,” he said
“People talk about it being tough, but it’s mentality isn’t it? If you say it’s tough, it’s going to be tough. I’m not saying it’s a walk in the park, but I don’t like that mentality.
“When you’ve got that kind of negative mentality flying around, you are always likely to get negative results. Where Villa is, they shouldn’t be.
“I have no problem with Bruce being manager there. If you look at his record at that level in terms of getting teams promoted, he has done it time and time again.”
Yorke was involved in the Sunderland side that achieved automatic promotion from the Championship during the 2004-05 season.
The former Trinidad and Tobago international spent nine years at Villa Park scoring a total of 63 goals in 199 appearances for the club.
Villa start the 2017-18 Championship campaign with a home fixture against Bruce’s former club Hull City at the start of August.