Steve Bruce can't wait for John Terry's Aston Villa return

Steve Bruce, the Aston Villa manager, has been around long enough to recognise a tricky question when he’s asked one.

So after a late header from Robert Snodgrass ended a five-game winless run, when he was asked whether John Terry will struggle to win back his place in the team side, Bruce replied: ‘I’ve been asked some stupid questions in my time, but I’ve never heard anything like that. I was going to swear, but there are ladies in the room.’

Monday's visit to Villa Park by promotion rivals Bristol City comes just too soon for Terry to make his comeback after two months out with a broken metatarsal. But the former Chelsea centre back’s impending availability is a welcome boost to Bruce, who knows transfer funds will be tight again.

‘We’ve got a lack of real firepower at the moment,’ Bruce said. ‘I’d love to sit here and say a club like ours should be going out to buy a centre forward in this window, but we can’t do it. We’ve got to go with what we’ve got.’

If Bruce, currently without nine senior professionals, is ‘down to the bare bones’, for his opposite number Tony Pulis it’s a case of getting rid of the excess fat in an under-performing squad.

‘This squad is bigger than the one I left at West Brom,’ the new Boro boss said after his first match in charge. ‘I don’t like big squads and this is definitely too big.’

Adam Clayton and Adam Forshaw already appear to be heading for the exit after being left out against Villa, and Pulis has warned the players he inherited and who did themselves no favours by stumbling to defeat that leaves them three points outside the play-off places.

Stewart Downing, the only Middlesbrough player to earn praise from his new boss, is one of a handful who appear safe from the Pulis axe.

The former England winger said: ‘The manager is intense and full-on and he demands the best. His aim is promotion and he’s already got his message across to everyone. He’s said if you don’t work, you’ll be out in January.’