Steve Bruce moaned about Aston Villa’s luck as Ahmed Elmohamady was subbed at half-time due to an injury during the 2-0 defeat to Fulham on Saturday.
The Villans manager was without Jack Grealish, Albert Adomah and Andre Green for Saturday’s game and shared that he thought those injuries were a reason why Aston Villa lost.
“For me they have been the catalyst in terms of what we have achieved, with the penetration of Adomah and scoring the goals and then Grealish in the middle of the pitch,” said Bruce as quoted by the Birmingham Mail.
“It’s the creativity we lacked today and that penetration which we have had in abundance over the last few weeks.
“We missed it, we were dealt that blow and weren’t able to cope with it.”
Bruce then continued to comment on his side’s injury problems by referring to the fact that Elmohamady had to be subbed off against Fulham.
“We had to change again, losing Elmo, it has been a cruel blow on us losing Albert and Grealish.
“They give us penetration and a forward threat, take away Elmo as well and we did not have that penetration.”
The Birmingham Mail reported that Grealish and Adomah are both likely to remain absence for Villa’s next league game against Preston North End on Tuesday.
The newspaper also revealed that Elmohamady is set to be assessed ahead of Tuesday’s game, but the report didn’t share whether Green will be fit enough to play.
OPINION
The defeat to Fulham ended a seven game winning streak and caused the Villans to slip out of the Championship’s automatic promotion places. It’s fair of Bruce to blame the absences of Grealish and Adomah as being the reason why they lost, even though Fulham were superb. It’s worrying to hear that Bruce is still set to have the duo missing for the game against Preston as they can’t avoid to drop points in their race to win promotion. Tuesday’s clash is set to be a tough game for Aston Villa and ideally they need all their best players available to them.