And after seeing his side crash to their heaviest defeat so far - ironically in front of their best crowd at the JJB Stadium this term- he refused to make excuses.
He said: "If you make glaring defensive errors at this level you get punished, and if you do it against a good team like Villa, then you get your backsides kicked.
"That's what happened to us and we have to make sure we learn from it. We have a big week coming up with games at Fulham and Portsmouth, and we will be aiming to get it right starting on Monday.
"We have played very well this season. But the Premier League is unforgiving and maybe we have got a little bit above our station, and now it's time to go back to basics.
No excuses
"We have to defend properly - we let three goals in at Liverpool last week and four today.
"Defensively we didn't do our jobs and that has been our strength. The other games we have lost have been by the odd goal."
The only goal of the first-half came from the penalty spot with Gareth Barry the scorer after Titus Bramble slid in to make the challenge on Gabriel Agbonlah.
At first it looked a harsh decision, but replays showed that ref Mike Jones got it right and there were no complaints from Bruce.
"It was a penalty and there are no excuses. Titus should have stayed on his feet - again it was a glaring error of judgement." said the manager.
Veteran keeper Brad Friedel kept Villa in charge with tremendous saves from Wilson Palacios, Jason Koumas and Emile Heskey.
But Olivier Kapo, who was withdrawn at half-time, missed terrific chances when he twice failed to hit the target.
Defensive blunders saw Latics self destruct in the second-half with Agbonlahor, John Carew and Steve Sidwell all cashing in as Wigan suffered a third successive defeat.
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