Steve Bruce admits it was a 'privilege' to manage Aston Villa but the Newcastle United head coach understandably wants to go back and beat his former side - and it's as 'simple as that'.
The 58-year-old spent two years at Villa Park and led his former club to the play-offs in 2018 but the Villans missed out on promotion back to the Premier League after losing the final against Fulham.
Bruce was sacked five months later after Villa won just one of their previous nine league games and a fan threw a cabbage at him before his final match in charge against Preston.
Successor Dean Smith led Villa back to the top-flight with largely the same squad and Bruce is now preparing for his first trip back to B6 on Monday night.
"It's like always when you got back to a club. I had the privilege to manage it," Bruce told reporters at his pre-match press conference.
"It was a great club. You're always disappointed the way it ends. Of course, I thought I would have demanded a bit more time but that was not the case after a difficult period really where the club, financially was in a difficult place.
"We nearly got there - lost in the play-off final - but overall, I can look back on it and say I thoroughly enjoyed it. It's a great club with big tradition big history but I want to go back and beat them. It's simple as that!"
The Magpies' trip to Villa Park will be their first Monday night game of the season, which has given Miguel Almiron some extra time to recover after playing for Paraguay in Saudi Arabia.
Almiron is still waiting to end his goal drought for Newcastle but Bruce has been heartened by the impact he has made without finding the back of the net of late.
"He's got two in three on international duty. Look, it will happen as I've said many, many times. I thought his last performance, in particular, he was sensational against Bournemouth," he added.
"His running statistics, I've never seen anybody in 20 years cover the distance, playing with the intensity, the sprint distance.... I've never seen it. It's high as I've ever seen. It will come because he's a multi-talented player. He just has to score once and I think it will open up.
"The front three, in particular, of course, all the scrutiny is about scoring goals. The way they played against Bournemouth, they were a threat and they were terrific in their work. Yes, they didn't score but the team scored, which is the important thing."
