Villa need at least 10 wins, says manager Garde

LONDON (Reuters) – Aston Villa, languishing at the bottom of the table, need at least 10 more wins if they are to avoid relegation from the Premier League for the first time, French manager Remi Garde said on Tuesday.

The former European champions have been ever present since the league began in 1992 but have not won since the opening day of the season.

With a mere seven points from 17 games, they are already 10 points from safety.

“Sometimes with 36 points you are safe, sometimes you can go down with more,” said Garde, who took over after Tim Sherwood was sacked in October.

“Step by step we need to concentrate on the first victory and then the second but we need to start very, very quickly,” he told a news conference ahead of Saturday’s home match against West Ham United.

“West Ham are a solid side, very efficient away. We need to find the balance of playing the home game with some good attacking play but be wary of the counter-attack.

“It’s a season with strange results. If you look at Bournemouth’s recent results against some of the big teams we can take heart from that.”

Garde added that he wanted to improve the squad’s fitness, an area he felt they could improve on “because it’s very important in this country”.

After West Ham’s visit, Villa play away to Norwich City on Monday.

(Reporting by Steve Tongue; editing by Sudipto Ganguly)