Villa Reaction: Paul Lambert on Spurs defeat

Villa manager Paul Lambert was disappointed with Benteke’s red card which marked a turnaround for Spurs to come back.

He said: “There’s things on the pitch which were a bit nasty I thought.

“I’m not condoning what Christian done, you can’t raise your hands and get away with it…but if you look a few frames before that, you see that the lad’s actually bumped him – but Christian can’t react to that, but he’s provoked him as well.

“(Before the red card) I thought we were really comfortable and well in the ascendency of the game. I thought Benteke was excellent and he and (Charles) N’Zogbia were playing ever so well together.

“It changed the game in the sense it gave Tottenham the ascendency to play against 10 men.”

Spurs boss Mauricio Pochettino had seen his team win just once in their last seven league games before today, but the three points here has propelled Tottenham into eighth in the table.

Lambert’s Villa side had not scored in their last five games – all of which were defeats – since Gabriel Agbonlahor’s winner in their 1-0 victory at Liverpool in September and – although they broke the deadlock here, the defeat marks their sixth loss on the bounce and leaves them just two points above the relegation zone.

And Lambert reflected on what could have been, adding: “I thought we were excellent, we could have won the game.

“The chances we had in the first half. I don’t think they could cope with Benteke and I thought N’Zogbia was excellent, but with 10 men we gave it everything we had.”

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