Steve Bruce has confessed that the better team won after his Aston Villa side suffered a 2-0 reverse at the hands of West Midlands rivals Wolverhampton Wanderers.

The Villans were outclassed for large parts and came unstuck when conceding two second-half goals, seeing their recent revival of four wins from four come to an end.

Bruce, who celebrated a year in charge in the build-up to the derby clash, admits that Villa simply did not do enough to warrant leaving Molineux with any sort of positive result to keep their run going.

"To create chances you have to get the ball back better," he told reporters. "I didn't think we went after the ball well enough. You can go at formations and systems and everything but I didn't think we did enough. It's as simple as that.

"We huffed and puffed and gave the ball away too cheaply when we had it. We've found it difficult again, though. Wolves have improved enormously as well. They've got good players here now. You'd expect them to be better.

"I believe we are better now [than 12 months ago], certainly. But we didn't have enough possession to make a difference and we didn't do enough without the ball. You have to say Wolves were better even though it sticks in your throat."

Bruce has now failed to win a league fixture at Molineux in any of his last six visits.