Tottenham’s Villas-Boas defends Vertonghen after Torres clash

Andre Villas-Boas has defended Jan Vertonghen after the Tottenham centre-half came in for criticism from Jose Mourinho in the fall-out from Saturday’s draw with Chelsea.

Mourinho claimed that referee Mike Dean was conned into showing Fernando Torres a red card after the pair clashed late on during the 1-1 draw at White Hart Lane.

But Spurs boss Villas-Boas has stuck up for the Belgium international, praising the Tottenham captain’s “character” following the stalemate in north London.

“Well I think the incident is pretty clear and people must draw their own conclusions from what they saw,” said Villas-Boas.

“What we have with Jan, he is only in his second year and he has become the captain of Spurs as well. He is one of our captains elected by myself and by the club because he has been that type of leader and that type of person for his last years with the national team and with Ajax. So he is a person that we hold high in the team.

“I’m extremely happy that most of the media saw the incident, knows about Jan’s values and have decided to draw positive conclusions about him and about his character.

“So that’s the end of the matter for us. We believe in the player a lot and we believe he is more than a great player and a great person.”

Villas-Boas’s comments come after it was confirmed that the Football Association had opted not to take any further disciplinary action against Torres after he was pictured scratching Vertonghen’s face in an incident before the Spaniard’s sending-off.