Blackburn Rovers 1 Tottenham Hotspur 2

Tottenham won their fifth Premier League game out of six and moved ahead of Liverpool into fifth position with one game in hand.  It was a hard earned win as bottom of the table, Blackburn showed great endeavour as they tried to snatch a late equaliser.

Blackburn Rovers 1 Tottenham Hotspur 2

Scorers:  Formica                      Van der Vaart (2) 

Team: Friedel; Walker, Kaboul, Bassong, Assou-Ekotto; Lennon (Rose), Parker, Modric, Bale; Van der Vaart (Defoe), Adebayor  Subs: (unused): Cudicini, Sandro, Livermore, Townsend, Pavlyuchenko.

Tottenham showed one change from last week's team at Newcastle United with Aaron Lennon returning after injury in place of Jake Livermore.  The Europa league goalscorer, Roman Pavlyuchenko was joined on the bench by Jermain Defoe who scored last weekend and Sandro who was still feeling the effects of his injury.  With Ledley King absent through injury, Scott Parker captained the team for the first time.

Two goals from Rafa Van der Vaart secured another win for Spurs and maintained their recent good form.  He gave Spurs the lead after fifteen minutes, following good work on the right by Kyle Walker.  Emmanuel Adebayor set Walker free on the right wing and his strong run into the penalty area took him to the bye-line and he pulled the ball back to Van der Vaart who stroked it past former Tottenham goalkeeper, Paul Robinson.

Spurs could have been two up when Bale's run and cross found Adebayor whose shot was easily saved by Robinson.  Then another cross was headed towards his own goal by a Rovers player but again The goalkeeper was able to tip the ball over fro a corner.  Then, in a repeat of last week's performance at Newcastle, Spurs let Blackburn back into the game after half an hour.  The conceded a free-kick and when Samba out jumped Younes Kaboul, he found Formica who blasted the ball into the roof of the net.

Level at the interval, Van der Vaart restored Spurs lead when he received the ball after it bounced off Benoit Assou-Ekotto in a promising Tottenham attack and curled his shot in from twenty yards.  From then on Tottenham looked to hold what they had and while it wasn't pretty and they were under considerable pressure they managed to hold off Blackburn.  Brad Friedel playing against his former club was under serious pressure as Rovers launched a series of high ball attacks from free-kicks, corners and throw ins.  Relief was the major feeling for Tottenham supporters at the end of a long final half hour at Ewood Park.

This result keeps Spurs in a strong position with one match in hand and maintained their recent good form at Ewood Park, three wins in the past three seasons which sees them continue to be five points up on the same fixtures last season.