Aston Villa manager Steve Bruce has described his side as "awful" after they fell to a 1-0 defeat at Cardiff City on Monday afternoon.

Joe Ralls put Neil Warnock's side ahead with 16 minutes on the clock, prompting Bruce to act "like a raving lunatic" in his half-time team talk.

"Look, the second half is what I require," Bruce told reporters. "The first half, I won't accept it. Here today, first half in particular, we were awful. There's no excuses, we were awful. I cannot flannel it any better than that, we were awful.

"Second half was much more like it, it looked as I we played with a bit more energy, as if we cared and we wanted to get back into the game. On another day we might have got four or five goals in the second half.

"But why did we have to wait for me to go on like a raving lunatic? It's not good for me and certainly we have to improve away from home. We have to come to places like that and basically do the basics. Roll your sleeves up and make sure that you don't get rolled over like we did in the first half."

The result left Villa 12th in the Championship, seven points off the playoffs.