Andre Villas-Boas thrilled with ‘creative’ Tottenham squad

Andre Villas-Boas has admitted his delight at seeing Tottenham’s “creative” new signings adapt to life in the Premier League with ease.

The north London club brought in seven new players over the summer following the sale of Gareth Bale to Real Madrid for a world-record fee.

Spurs splashed out in excess of £100m on new recruits, with Erik Lamela’s £30m arrival from Roma breaking the north London club’s transfer record.

But Villas-Boas was thrilled to be able to bring in the quality he feels is needed to secure a qualification for next season’s Champions League.

“We re-strengthened well, mostly with creative players who possess great ability on the ball,” Villas-Boas told Uefa.com.

“All of them will have difficulties adapting to the pace of the Premier League, but all of them are creative players.

“A couple of them have gone through their adaptation very quickly – the likes of Paulinho, [Roberto] Soldado and [Étienne] Capoue – and we expect the others to do so because they are wonderfully gifted players.”

The Tottenham boss, whose side face Anzhi Makhachkala in Russia on Thursday afternoon, added: “Our aim is to play creative football and that is why we were very active with this type of player in the market.”