DARREN Bent believes Villa must start producing positive back-to-back results now to emulate the late-season recovery of last year.

Bent’s record-breaking arrival last January eventually helped Villa climb to ninth despite a nervous struggle.

Gerard Houllier’s team were in a similar state of Premier League limbo 12 months ago and it got worse before it got better.

And Bent admits Alex McLeish’s men must aim for successive victories, starting with trips to struggling Wigan and Blackburn.

Villa have not produced back-to-back Premier League wins and their best sequence was two wins and four draws at the start of the season.

But Bent knows they need another unbeaten run to ensure they end the campaign with a relaxed run-in rather than a tense relegation battle.

“This season we don’t want to be dragged into it,” he said. “We’ve got a few games which, on paper, people will say these are your best chances of getting points.

“After that we’ve got some seriously hard games. So we want to make ourselves as comfortable as possible by the time the bigger games come up, so we can play relaxed like we know we can do.

“By the last two games last season everyone knew we were safe so when we went to play against Arsenal and Liverpool we were much more relaxed.

“We went to the Emirates and got the three points and then beat Liverpool at home.

“Everyone was relaxed and with the confidence managed to find the quality that we always knew we had.”

Villa’s away record is slightly better than their home form and they hope to prosper on their travels during the next fortnight.

“We just need to start picking up more results,” said Bent.