The play-offs beckon for Steve Bruce and his Aston Villa side, with their road to the Premier League littered with obstacles at every turn.

Automatic promotion is slipping away, with light at the end of the tunnel for Wolves and Cardiff City who currently occupy the top two and the focus at Villa Park is to now acquire the correct play-off seeding to secure a favourable tie.

Transfer plans will be far from Bruce’s mind as he attempts to mastermind yet another promotion to the Premier League but the club’s board and chairman Tony Xia will ponder where their money will be distributed in the coming months.

Player sales will be important in building up a respectable transfer kitty but Bruce must refrain from discarding this trio and instead arranging them loan moves so that they can return to Villa Park with renewed vigour…

The right back has made a handful of appearances under Bruce this year and will be keeping tabs on first-choice Alan Hutton’s future at the club given that his contract is set to expire in June.

Bree may have an eye on a regular role but with Bruce likely to source a more experienced option in the summer window, Bree may be best suited to a short-term stint away from the club in order to hone his skills and return a more complete player.

Very promising given that he is just twenty years of age, the academy graduate has a future at Villa Park but would benefit massively appearing on a week-in-week-out basis in League One.

Looking to be a star of the future, nineteen-year-old O’Hare has impressed from the bench and could be a regular in Bruce’s side within the next couple of years.

However, his time has not yet arrived and a loan move to further his ability is exactly what the player needs right now.

A successful year in which he finds the back of the net on a regular basis in the third or second tier would significantly improve O’Hare’s standing in Bruce’s mind and the player would be handed an opportunity to consistently prove to his boss why he should never have been allowed to leave the West Midlands in the first place.

O’Hare would be a real steal for a League Two side.

Yes, Davis has appeared in the league on almost thirty occasions, but should Villa be promoted then the youngster is by no means cut out for Premier League football just yet.

Finding the net just twice, Davis has wasted an abundance of opportunities to add to his tally in a series of misses that have frustrated Villains fans to the core, who know that the young forward has what it takes to finish a huge percentage of things that come his way.

Davis needs more time to develop and was only thrust into the first-team due to a pile-up of injuries; a loan spell at a League One side would do him the well of good.

There is no way the player should leave on a permanent basis but having utilised the loan market himself to reinstall a sense of belief within a player, Bruce will know that Davis must be leant to another club over the summer.

Villa fans, thoughts?