on 21 may 2004, laursen was bought by fa premier league side aston villa for a fee of £3 million, on a four-year contract. his debut with villa came against southampton on 14 august, a match which ended 2–0 in villa's favour. laursen's time at villa initially proved frustrating. he put in a few encouraging performances on and off, during the 2004–05 season, but the knee injury that plagued him earlier in his career returned and kept laursen at playing only one premier league game for aston villa during the 2005–06 season. after a re-occurrence of the knee injury during the summer 2006 off-season, his playing future at club and international level was seen to be in doubt.