Aston Villa suffered a surprise 3-1 defeat to QPR last night that has seriously impacted their chances of catching the top two.

With Cardiff and Wolves both winning, Steve Bruce’s men are now seven points behind the Welsh side and trail the leaders by ten as we approach the final nine games of the season.

The West Midlands side went into the game full of confidence after comfortably beating the table-toppers on Saturday but couldn’t replicate that display against the Londoners.

Goals from Ryan Manning, Jake Bidwell and Luke Freeman gave the R’s a three-goal lead before James Chester pulled one back late on.

Afterwards, Bruce acknowledged that he had made a mistake regarding his team selection, with the ex-Hull boss going with the same team that won on Saturday.

Here we look at three things we learnt about the manager last night...

As mentioned, Bruce admitted that he made a mistake not changing the team and ultimately it proves he doesn’t have enough faith in the fringe players.

The manager will have known the effort the side put in on Saturday and their fitness levels going into another big game a few days later but hoped the momentum would see them through.

Yet, there were players clearly struggling and Villa have quality in reserve.

We’re not suggesting he should’ve made wholesale changes but the likes of Birkir Bjarnason and Scott Hogan may have given the Villa side energy when it was really lacking.

One positive that we saw from Bruce was how he was willing to shake things up.

The introduction of Keinan Davis for Neil Taylor saw Villa go to a back three, with Albert Adomah as a wing-back.

Whilst it didn’t change the result, Villa had a lot more efforts and were more threatening in the last half hour.

Things won’t always go your way and it’s good to see that Bruce will adapt if needed.

However, whilst that was a positive, the fact it took until the 56th minute for things to change was a negative.

Villa were flat from the first whistle and two goals down after 33 minutes. Whilst subbing a player at that stage would be harsh, he could’ve made more tactical tweaks to try and get back into the game.

Instead, they had just one effort on target in a weak first 45 minutes.

Then, he didn’t even make the attacking move at half-time, waiting another 11 minutes before gambling despite the score.

It was good to see Bruce change it but he will realise now that he may have to be more decisive earlier on in future games.

Thoughts, Villa fans? Let us know in the comments below.