The result took Villa's recent tally to two points from a possible nine and Laursen believes this weekend's home match with Sunderland a 'must win'.

Laursen told the club's official website: "This is a test for us now. But that's what it's all about. We have to prove that we are men and not boys. We have to prove we can stand tough when things are not going our way.

"When you are winning, everything is easy. When you have a few bad results you have to show your character and that is what we will do. We are not giving up.

"We have a great opportunity now against Sunderland at home to bounce back and try to win the game. Sunderland are fighting for every point, but so are we.

"This is a great challenge. We have to forget about the Portsmouth result and try to learn from our mistakes. We have to think only about Sunderland now."

On Saturday's defeat, Danish international Laursen continued: "It was a tough one to take because I still thought in the second-half we were in the game. I felt we had some chances and we could have scored.

"They didn't have that much, so it was frustrating really to have conceded the two goals in the first-half - especially the second.

"It was one of those days where we were unlucky with some things and it just wasn't going to be our day. We know we didn't play well and could have done better, but there were some frustrating things as well.

"With the second goal, if Scott cleared the ball 100 times more, he would probably not hit Nigel in that way for an own-goal.

"We played some decent stuff, but you can't really be happy about anything after a 2-0 defeat. We're very unhappy with the result, which in the end is the most important thing. Right now we're just very upset and disappointed."

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