Tottenham Hotspur are coming off a marvelous 2-0 win at the expense of Aston Villa, to which Spurs manager Andre Villas-Boas believes that the first Spurs goal provided them a needed momentum that they were able to sustain throughout the rest of the game.

Villa's direct approach was evident early on in the match, which caused Tottenham problems.

"It was difficult in the beginning because they kept putting long balls in behind us and we couldn't get control of the ball," Villas-Boas told tottenhamhotspur.com.

Andros Townsend broke the deadlock at the 31st minute with a twirling strike from distance, finding the right bottom corner, which saw Villa goalkeeper Brad Guzan helpless.

"The goal obviously gave us the confidence to play and the way the team came out and played in the second half was great, keeping the ball with lots of mobility, a really attacking, flowing game," revealed Villas-Boas.

Before the Villa game, the Spurs were handed a 3-0 shellacking by West Ham United, and AVB knows that bouncing back and earning points would be what they will need most to boost the spirits at White Hart Lane.

"It was important to bounce back. It was always going to be difficult, especially after Villa won here against City. They had the motivation, our confidence was a bit low but there was a great determination from the players to bounce back. It was a really solid performance."

AVB decided to mix things up when he inserted Vlad Chiriches, who made his starting debut, in the starting 11 as well as giving Sandro his first start since going down with a knee injury in January.

"We decided to give opportunities to players who had done well in the Europa League and they took that opportunity," he added.

"There were great individual performances from Sandro, Vlad, Lewis Holtby and I'm really happy with how the team performed in general."

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