Tottenham bounced back from their recent home defeat to West Ham by beating Aston Villa thanks to an inspired Andros Townsend performance.

The man of the moment opened the scoring on 31 minutes before Roberto Soldado secured the points midway through the second half.

But it was the home side who started the brightest, barely allowing Spurs out of their own half.

And Villa had a chance to open the scoring opening exchanges when Michael Dawson failed to deal with a cross from Leandro Bacuna, but Gabriel Agbonlahor could only fire over from 12 yards.

The Lilywhites responded moments later when Soldado fed Jan Vertonghen, his low cross flashing across the face of goal and out for a corner.

The visitors tried to build from the back, but Villa’s continued pressure forced them into making mistakes. Dawson was the culprit on one occasion when his wayward pass into the crowd was met with ironic cheers from the home fans.

But Villa’s defence was breached just after the half-hour mark when a superb cross from Townsend was missed by both Lewis Holtby and Soldado before nestling in the back of Brad Guzan’s goal.

The Villans had an opportunity to level things up just before the break when Andreas Weimann’s shot from 20 yards hit the side-netting.

In the build-up to the game Villa boss Paul Lambert claimed there would be no special tactics for Townsend — and clearly there weren’t.

Spurs started after the second half with the same vigour as they had finished the first with Townsend trying his luck, this time from 20 yards.

Villa were clearly on the back foot so Lambert threw on Christian Benteke who has missed the last two league games with a hip injury.

And the Belgium international nearly made an immediate impact but narrowly headed a Weimann cross over the bar.

But the away side wrapped up the victory when Holtby found Paulinho and his neat pass released Soldado who cleverly lifted the ball over the advancing Guzan.