Laursen keen to keep it tight

Villa skipper hoping to keep opposition quiet

By Chris Burton   Last updated: 18th August 2008

aston villa martin laursen odense

Laursen: Pumped up

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Martin Laursen feels Aston Villa must be tighter at the back despite their flying start to the new season.

Villa secured a 4-2 victory over Manchester City in their opening Premier League fixture on Sunday, a result inspired by a seven-minute hat-trick from Gabriel Agbonlahor.

However, club captain Laursen is conscious that the Villans conceded far too many goals last term - 51 in 38 matches - and has called upon his team-mates to help make life more difficult for opposition attackers.

"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," said the Denmark interntional.

Understanding

"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.

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

"Brad Friedel is a good goalkeeper, you can see that. I thought Luke Young and Nicky Shorey also 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.

"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."

Winning

With Martin O'Neill's men looking to build on an impressive 2007/08 campaign which saw them finish sixth in the top flight, Laursen also pushed the importance of making a good start this time around.

He said: "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 (against FH Hafnarfjordur) in the UEFA Cup on Thursday.

"We played well against Man City 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."