Villa showed plenty of 'bouncebackability' last season. Now Martin Laursen is looking for more of the same after Saturday's 3-2 defeat at Stoke City.

And the Villa skipper insists confidence will not be affected by the last-gasp reverse at the Britannia Stadium.

Martin O'Neill's men face two big home games this week - the UEFA Cup qualifier against Icelandic side FH Hafnarfjordur followed quickly by a Barclays Premier League clash with Liverpool.

Laursen said: "We always bounced back last season and we will try and do that again. I can't promise that but our confidence is fine. It is not low, we are just sad not to have got at least a point from the weekend.

"But confidence is still OK. We played a very good game against Manchester City at home and we hope to win again on Thursday. We are just disappointed we came back twice against Stoke but lost the game.

"Of course we're disappointed right now but we have a big week coming up. We can go through in the UEFA Cup and then on Sunday there's a massive game at Villa Park.

"So we're all looking forward to this week but we can't be happy after Saturday's defeat because we are all so disappointed to have lost that game."