Reaction Of Andre Villas-Boas, Players And Fans To Win At Sunderland
By Logan Holmes
Andre Villas-Boas demonstrated with his actions at the final whistle just how much the win over Sunderland meant to him. He turned to the crowd with fists clenched and a huge smile in celebration.
AVB’s delight at the final whistle [Photo: Alan Hill]Manager
Two weeks ago at the Etihad Stadium after the humiliation at the hands, or feet, Manchester City, it appeared that AVB’s Tottenham project was about to fall apart as the pressure mounted on the manager. With two away wins and a draw at home to Manchester United in the past seven days, things have taken early, tentative steps to recovery.
In his post-match interview with BBC Sport, AVB commented on the recovery, giving credit to the players for their fighting qualities in the past week.
"It was a very important win for us. It completes a good, good week, a good start to December. Two away fixtures, a Premier League midweek fixture and Manchester United at home was always a difficult scenario following our defeat against City, so it’s a great fightback from the team finally completed."
AVB told @SpursOfficial,
"We didn’t deserve to go 1-0 down, we were excellent, created a lot and the win was the only deserved result. We had to shuffle the back four completely, shifted Daws to the left, @Knaughts88 came in at left-back they were all brilliant."
He had praise for Etienne Capoue who came in to the team to play in central defence for the first time for Spurs.
Andre: "Etienne deserves credit (after playing at centre-half), it was a great performance and we're all delighted for him."
— Tottenham Hotspur (@SpursOfficial) December 7, 2013
Players
Michael Dawson was interviewed by SkySports immediately after the game. He said,
"The result was massive and it showed the determination and togetherness of the team."
Kyle Walker speaking to @SpursOfficial also reflected on the past week’s results, describing the win at the Stadium of Light as “fantastic”.
Here's @kylewalker2 : "We showed great desire to come back from 1-0 down, full credit to the lads, we had to dig deep & play our football."
— Tottenham Hotspur (@SpursOfficial) December 7, 2013
Paulinho [Photo: Alan Hill]Paulinhospoke to @SpursOfficial and was delighted to have scored. He said,
"The Premier League is difficult and when you lose the first goal, you have to play well to come back. We did that. It was important to win this game. I scored again, I’m really happy and everyone in the group is delighted."
Aaron Lennon tweeted after the game.
Another great win, to round off a great week for us,the lads put a great shift In and we deserved the win #buzzing fans were ledge too #coys
— Aaron Lennon (@AaronLennon12) December 7, 2013
Fans
On Twitter, fans had their say. @davidSpurs tweeted,
Spurs have played some good football this last couple of games Lennon has been a big difference going forward. #coys
— David 🇦🇺 ⬜️🟦 (@davidSpurs) December 8, 2013
@bobyiddo reflected on Spurs’ Saturday win.
well this is different , sunday morning and spurs already have the three points in the bag, nice chilled out day me thinks
— bob green (@bobyiddo) December 8, 2013
Dean Jones @deano_thfc pondered the composition of future teams.
On Tottenham fans messageboards the players were receiving praise for the win and the performance. Etienne Capoue was given credit for his display in central defence and even Kyle Naughton who usually comes in for a lot of criticism was getting some praise.
It’s been a good week for Spurs and has lifted the spirits at the club and for supporters.