After victory over Manchester City, Martin Laursen admits Aston Villa's defence is a work in progress.

The Danish international said: "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.

"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."