Chris Herd urges Aston Villa to fight back

Herd speaking after Tottenham defeat: 'Hopefully we can bounce back this weekend and get a result at Swansea' (Getty Images)

Chris Herd has called on his Aston Villa team-mates to bounce back from their hugely-disappointing performance against Tottenham by claiming their first away victory of the season at Swansea on Sunday.

Villa's wretched away form continued last night when they were out-classed by a dominant Tottenham side, who ran out 2-0 winners at White Hart Lane.

The away side barely registered a shot on target and their sloppy ball retention allowed Tottenham to run riot in a match which two-goal striker Emmanuel Adebayor should have easily bagged at least a hat-trick.

The result means that Villa are still looking for their first away win of the season despite facing bottom-half sides Fulham, Everton and Sunderland on their travels this year.

Alex McLeish's side head to the Liberty Stadium to face newly-promoted Swansea this weekend and Herd wants the squad to come away with a good result to make up for last night's poor display.

Herd said: "We came to Tottenham fully confident of coming away with a result, but we didn't get it and we are disappointed with that, especially with the fans travelling such a long way to come and see us. Now we have to go back to the training ground, talk as a team to find out where we went wrong and try to fix those problems.

"Hopefully we can bounce back this weekend and get a result at Swansea.

"We have a massive ground and great fans at Villa Park so we are obviously good at home, we now just need to improve our away form.

"We are a confident team. We will pick ourselves up and go on to the next one."

Much of the pre-match talk had centred on Darren Bent's return to White Hart Lane for just the second time since Harry Redknapp sold the striker to Sunderland two years ago.

The 27-year-old, who has gone on to become a regular England squad member since leaving Sunderland for Villa Park, drew a blank last night and barely had a sniff at goal thanks to two top performances from Spurs centre backs Ledley King and Younes Kaboul.

The former Spurs forward was keen to show his former employers they had made a mistake in letting him go, but Herd thinks the striker's failure to deliver at White Hart Lane last night will not affect his recent good form in the coming weeks.

"Darren has been a great player for us and will keep on being a great player for us. His confidence won't be affected by what happened here at all," the versatile Villa midfielder added.

PA