If there's one thing that privately grieves Thomas Sorensen, it's that whatever he goes on to achieve in his football career, he will probably only ever be known in the city of Birmingham for two high-profile goalkeeping cock-ups.

But, if he really wants to get last season's two derby-game clangers out of his head, the Aston Villa No 1 only has to put his international hat on to give himself happy thoughts.

Sorensen was still at Sunderland when his Denmark side met England in Niigata in June 2002 for a place in the last eight of the World Cup.

He was twice at fault as England carved open a 3-0 half-time lead - and the Danes were out of the competition. Yet, a mere 17 months later, Sorensen was celebrating after being part of the Denmark side which beat England 3-2 in a friendly at Old Trafford.

Which is living proof, not that he needed reminding, that you can put the past behind you.

The two teams meet again in Copenhagen next Wednesday night, an important warm- up game for next month's vital World Cup qualifiers. And, although Sorensen is chiefly preoccupied with Villa's seasonopener against Bolton Wanderers tomorrow, he also has one eye on that Denmark-England friendly.

"It's always special playing England," he said. "You know most of the players, which makes it a bit easier and it's just a shame I will not be facing any of my Villa teammates this time.

"But it's still a very important game for both teams, especially for us. We have to more or less win the rest of the games in our group and playing England is great preparation.

"It's obviously going to be talked about here a lot in our dressing room and it would be nice to come back with a bit of Danish pride and say 'We beat England' again. I know I enjoyed it last time when we won at Old Trafford and that proved we know how to beat England."

First things first, though and starting with Bolton, Sorensen can truly begin the process of restoring his reputation at Premiership level by way of a countdown to his first massive psychological test of the campaign - at St Andrew's on October 16.

He insists that process is already under way by virtue of what he achieved after the second of last term's two derby howlers at St Andrew's in March.

Having been backed both in word and deed by his manager David O'Leary, who refused to bow to pressure to axe him, Sorensen did indeed respond well.

Either side of the 5- 1 thrashing which he missed at White Hart Lane in early May, Sorensen leaked just eight goals in seven games and it frustrates him that everyone still only remembers the bad times.

"That's the way it is for goalkeepers," he said. "But, if I had broken down over something like that, I wouldn't be here today.

"We all make mistakes somewhere along the line and I'll make mistakes in the future. The key is to keep them to an absolute minimum in the future.

"I was feeling very low after the second one and what the manager said about me was nice, but the only one who could solve the problem was me. I set myself a target over the final few weeks to really perform well, which I did and that was important for me.

"I never doubted myself. What I did was not bad goalkeeping. It was bad mental concentration.

"They were perhaps the easiest mistakes to get over. They were not something that happened because I was lacking in my game and, after a few days, the pain eased a bit.

"Of course I was frustrated with the mistakes I made, as you know that is what people will remember, but I also look back upon having played well for 90 per cent of the time."

Having sorted himself out, Sorensen is confident that this summer's new arrivals will help sort out Villa as a team - especially the one he knows best, his former Sunderland team-mate Kevin Phillips.

With Gavin McCann already at the club, there has already been criticism that O'Leary is busy reassembling the Sunderland relegation side of three years ago but Sorensen points out: "What really matters is that they're good players and both are. Kevin did fantastic at Sunderland and pretty well at Southampton and has been tremendous in pre-season.

"He could be one of the best signings of the summer. Patrik Berger is a good player with loads of experience and Aaron Hughes and Stuart Taylor are good signings too.

"Pre-season has been good, spirits are good and, if we can find consistency and keep the XI together, then we can look forward to an exciting season."