Villa Will Improve

Martin Laursen has stated that Villa can and will improve over the coming weeks, especially in the defensive department.

The history books will show from HF and Man City that with us scoring 8 goals in two matches and only conceeding 3, that there isn't much room to improve.

Laursen appreciates the defensive errors we have seen over those two games though, some of you may know about them - they've been discussed intensively on the message board!

Speaking on the official site, the current Captain referenced the goals we stupidly conceeded last season and he's determined that we will not drop points in that manner this time round.

He further believes that with the players we have in defence now it's almost guaranteed we will conceed less this campaign but rather than assuming we will, he wants to make sure we will.

'We can't concede too many goals like we did last season. It would be great to eliminate that and still score a lot of goals.

'We know we can improve defensively and we will continue working hard to do that. We are good enough as a team to cut down on the goals we concede.

'But we are still happy with the start to the season we have made. If we can keep scoring goals and start to concede fewer goals that is perfect.

'It is a new defence with a new goalkeeper and that will not develop overnight. The new guys played well.

'Brad is a good goalkeeper, you can see that. I thought Luke Young and Nicky Shorey played well but it takes time to play together and be comfortable together.

'But we'll get that right. We have to look at it as a whole team and we know we need to do better defensively.'

Despite conceeding 2, given the fact this is the first competative match all of our back 5 have ever played together, Laursen doesn't believe we could've started the campaign any better nor sent a much better message out to the Top 4 about our intent and aims for the next 9 months.

'It was a great way to start the season. To score four goals at home and to win the game was just the perfect start.

'Gabby was fantastic. He can be so dangerous and he's a good player. He can be strong holding the ball up, he's quick and he showed he can score goals. It was a great performance from him.

'It was important to get off to a winning start. We have done well in our important games in the pre-season. We got the right result in the Intertoto Cup and we played well in Iceland on Thursday.

'So we went into this game looking for another win. We played well and I think we can be happy with the way things are going for the club. We conceded a couple of goals again but the most important thing was that we won.'

Click here to join in the debate on the club forum.