Darren Bent has urged Aston Villa not to get caught up in a relegation battle.

Villa are currently 15th in the Premier League table following a poor run of results.

England international Bent believes that Villa must start to record back-to-back victories if they are to prevent themselves from getting into trouble.

"This season we don't want to be dragged into it. We just need to start picking up more results," said the striker. "We've got a few games which, on paper, people will say these are your best chances of getting points. After that we've got some seriously hard games.

"So we want to make ourselves as comfortable as possible by the time the bigger games come up.

"There have been occasions when we've had goal leads and had slow starts and we have to improve that as a team. I can't remember the last time we got back-to-back victories but hopefully we can get a top-ten finish."

Bent has found the net on ten occasions this season.