Laursen: Villa must stand up to bully boys

Aug 7 2007 By Bill Howell, Birmingham Mail

MARTIN Laursen has called on Villa to finally beat the bully boys of the Premiership.

Villa possess a poor record against the top four, although Chelsea have not beaten them at Villa Park in eight years.

"This is my fourth season and I can't remember us ever beating one of the big teams in my time here," the Danish international said. "That's a thing I think we should aim for this season.

"We need to believe more that we can win against those big teams - I'm talking about Chelsea, Liverpool, Arsenal and Manchester United. You see other teams beating them, so why can't we? It's not impossible to beat them."

Villa go out to end a near 10-year wait for a home victory against Liverpool on Saturday with Laursen calling for self-belief.

"That's something we should improve for this season, to really believe for the whole 90 minutes against the big teams. We should believe we can win every game.

"We did get some good results against the bigger teams last season. We did very well against Arsenal on the first day of the season and we did well against Chelsea at home.

"But we still lost 4-0 against Chelsea in the Carling Cup. We still lost three times against Manchester United and we still lost at Liverpool. So it is a record we can try to improve."

Laursen believes Saturday's comprehensive defeat of Inter Milan has given Villa a big lift.

"It was perfect to prepare us for the big games ahead," he said. "I don't want us to go to places like Old Trafford and Anfield just looking to get the games out of the way. We should go for it."