By Dan Harrison

Randy Lerner believes Villa's players showed great strength of character to get through a difficult spell and finish the campaign with a flourish.

Having gone nine Barclays Premier League games without a win, Villa recovered to win their last two home matches against Hull City and Newcastle.

The chairman was pleased with the way they got over the dip in form.

He said: "In this business you are going to go through those ups and downs and that was one of them.

"I actually thought we did a pretty good job of getting through it and ending on a good note.

"I think finishing where we did and the way we did, winning the last game was great."