New Aston Villa manager Remi Garde will take charge of the struggling club lying rock-bottom of the Premiership after nine defeats from 11 matches. The Frenchman prepares for a baptism of fire as his first game is against top-of-the-table side Manchester City on 8 November.

"I've been in the club only for three days now. My main target was to meet the players, to give them a lot of confidence quite quickly because as you know we have a little game on Sunday so I was really focused on the Sunday game because it's very important, then we will have an international break so I will have more time to look around me. There are a lot of things that I need to record and discover issues that I need to fix, so I had quite long days in the past three days," he said.

Asked whether he would be able to keep Villa in the Premiership this season, Garde said it would be tough but certainly feasible. "I hope so," he said. "This is my target of course, of course. We are four points away from the good place. So it's a big target because only 28 games to go. The players are not too much confident but as soon as we get some points, some good results, hopefully very soon. Maybe it's going to get better."

The former Lyon manager led his previous club to two domestic titles in his four years in charge.

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