Aston Villa fitness levels needed to be improved, says Remi Garde

Remi Garde says he has not been happy with the fitness levels of his Aston Villa players since he took over in November.

Villa have not won a Premier League match since the opening day of the season, with Garde succeeding Tim Sherwood in late October after six straight losses.

While not keen to lean too much on fitness and running statistics, Garde is satisfied that improvements have been made since he arrived at the club.

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"I don't want to judge what happened before but it is just my feeling that we could improve a little bit more in this area of the game because it is very important in this country," Garde said.

"You have a lot of duels. The rhythm of the game is very high, the pace is very high.

"I feel that we have improved a lot. When I arrived, someone told me the team was the last one in terms of runs. I told you I'm not very keen on statistics because you can say one thing and find another statistic that will prove the opposite and I'm very careful with that.

"But, nevertheless, you have to look at it and I know we have improved in this area."

Garde has led Villa to three draws and three losses since he took over, with the club bottom of the league and 10 points from safety.

West Ham visit Villa Park on Boxing Day and Garde thinks his side now must win almost half of their remaining matches to survive after outlining a 10-game winning target.

"I don't know exactly but I think we need at least 10 victories. Sometimes with 36 points you are safe, sometimes you go down," he said. "Sometimes with more points you can go down as well.

"Step by step we need to concentrate on the first victory, then the second, and we need to start very quickly for sure. We have seen the Norwich and Bournemouth victories against teams you never would have expected. You never know, maybe this is a year when you can win or lose against any team.

"It would be the best gift I could find with my players [to beat West Ham]. I don't believe too much in gifts. As I told you many times, we don't have to rely on anyone else but us."