Aston Villa 1 Tottenham 2:WHATEVER HARRY Redknapp received for Christmas, nothing will come close to the "present" Tottenham Hotspur chairman Daniel Levy gave him at 4pm on deadline day in August.

Rafael van der Vaart was the gift in question and the Spurs manager has been reaping the benefits ever since. Back from a month on the sidelines, the Dutchman returned to score both goals against Aston Villa, taking his tally for the season to 10 in 15 appearances.

It was another outstanding individual contribution from Van der Vaart on a night when Tottenham were forced to play 63 minutes with 10 men after Jermain Defoe was sent off for striking James Collins in the face during an aerial challenge with the Villa captain.

Yet, as they had against Internazionale in San Siro in October, when Spurs rallied spectacularly despite having Heurelho Gomes sent off early on, Redknapp’s players showed strength in adversity to come through.

With Villa pressing for an equaliser in the second half, Gareth Bale went on one of those mesmerising runs that inevitably ends up with defenders sitting on their backsides and Spurs fans on their feet.

The Welshman then had the presence of mind to pick out Aaron Lennon, who laid the ball back for Van der Vaart to convert his second.

Marc Albrighton pulled a goal back for Villa eight minutes from time but the disgruntled home supporters will have expected much more from a team that had a numerical advantage for so long.

Defoe complained about his dismissal, although after viewing television replays of the incident it was difficult to sympathise with him.

He hardly has a reputation for being an aggressive player but there was no doubt he led with the arm as he went into an aerial challenge with Collins that culminated in him making contact with the side of the Welshman’s face.

Martin Atkinson, the referee, reached immediately for the red card as Defoe protested his innocence. He now faces a three-match ban.

The incident came at a time when Tottenham could have been forgiven for believing they were about to take control of an absorbing game that ebbed and flowed. Although Villa more than matched Spurs in the early exchanges – they could easily have gone ahead inside the first minute when Gomes saved twice from Gabriel Agbonlahor in quick succession – the visitors had seized the lead with a sublime goal four minutes before Defoe’s sending off.

It was no surprise that the mercurial Luka Modric was the architect. The Croatian drilled a wonderful 50-yard crossfield pass that took Stewart Downing and Stephen Warnock out of the game and invited Alan Hutton to run free on the Spurs right.

With the Villa defence frantically backtracking, Hutton delivered a low centre that eluded Collins and ran perfectly into the path of the onrushing Van der Vaart. The rest was a formality as the Dutchman side-footed home from eight yards with the minimum of fuss.

That ruthless touch was missing at the opposite end, although Villa did have strong claims for a penalty in the ninth minute, when the lively Albrighton swept in a low cross that Emile Heskey reached before Gomes. Both players ended up on the floor and it was telling that Gomes’s instinctive reaction was to look in the direction of the referee.

Atkinson waved play on, Gomes breathed a sigh of relief and Heskey remained on the floor in a heap. The Villa striker lasted another half an hour before limping off. Several decent chances had come and gone at both ends by that stage.

Gomes made another double save to thwart Agbonlahor in the 18th minute, after the forward ran onto Heskey’s neat header, but Brad Friedel was just as busy in the Villa goal.

Friedel had denied Defoe in the fourth minute and tipped a rasping drive from Wilson Palacios behind during a spell just before half-time when Spurs were knocking the ball around with embarrassing ease despite playing with 10 men.

The balance of the game shifted after the interval, however, as Villa began to pin Spurs back. The danger for Villa was that Spurs would strike on the counterattack and so it proved. Bale drove from deep before picking out Lennon whose unselfish cut-back was expertly placed beyond Friedel by Van der Vaart.

Villa refused to concede defeat and kept the game alive when Albrighton’s inswinging cross drifted inside Gomes’s far post but Tottenham stood firm and withstood the late pressure to collect a vital win.

Guardian Service