Curtis Davies has insisted Villa’s defence has the quality to cope without talismanic skipper Martin Laursen.

Laursen has missed the claret and blues’ last three games with a knee problem and is not expected to return for another three weeks, ruling him out of Saturday’s derby against Albion.

Zat Knight has stepped into the side in Laursen’s place, with Davies switching to the left central defensive slot to accommodate the former Fulham man, in a new-look defence that has included midfielder Nigel Reo-Coker filling in at right back for the injured Carlos Cuellar.

Despite enduring a few sticky moments, Villa are yet to lose without their Danish defensive rock, drawing with Arsenal and beating Hull and Gillingham to maintain their top-four charge and remain in the hunt for the FA Cup.

It has placed extra responsibilities on the shoulders of Davies but, according to the England hopeful, that is just fine.

He said: “I don’t feel there is more pressure on me with Martin out of the side. I’m trying to play my game – win my headers, win my tackles and that’s it. I’m playing the left side so I need to remember I’m covering the left back not the right back.

“It’s not harder, it’s the same position but a few times when it drops to your left foot it’s a little bit awkward. You’re a Premier League centre-half though, so you should be able to deal with that. When Martin comes back it will just go back to normal.

“It depends if he comes back into the team and if I’m alongside him or someone else is alongside him. Competition for places has upped another gear.

“Hopefully come the second half of the season, we’ll get people playing in their positions and staying fit. Then you never know, we could push it all the way.”

Villa find themselves sitting pretty inside the top four, after a stunning eight-game unbeaten run that has given them genuine hope of reaching the Champions League for the first time.

But Davies has played down Villa’s lofty position, insisting it doesn’t count for anything until the end of the season.

He said: “It’s looking good but it’s January. We don’t want to get carried away, we’re doing very well at the moment but we need to keep going. No matter what other people are doing we need to concentrate on ourselves.

“If we are there in May, then we will start getting happy.”