Tottenham can win titles - Andre Villas-Boas

Andre Villas-Boas believes his side might be better off following the sale of Gareth Bale

Tottenham boss Andre Villas-Boas believes that his side could be better off without Gareth Bale following his summer purchases in the transfer market.

Tottenham Hostpur sold their star player Gareth Bale to Real Madrid for a world record fee of £85 million but Spurs used the loss to fund a £105 million spending spree as they brought in seven new players to compensate for Bale’s absence.

Of the seven new players, six are highly rated youngsters and Andre Villas-Boas believes that they could fulfill their potential at White Hart Lane and become world beaters, just as Bale did.

As well as adding established Spanish striker Roberto Soldado, 28, to his ranks, Villas-Boas added Paulinho, Nacer Chadli, Christian Eriksen, Erik Lamela, Vlad Chiriches and Etienne Capoue – all of whom are 24 or younger and highly rated.

Villas-Boas said: “We’ve done our transfer activity and invested a lot in young players that have great potential. We will have to work with them to make sure they develop into the world stars that we think they can become.”

The Tottenham manager believes his revamped squad could challenge for silverware in the coming years but admitted that his side were not title challengers this season.

Villas-Boas said: “All of them have great ambition to succeed, which is one of the criteria we wanted – ambitious people that want to win titles – and now it’s creating a team that bonds together and ­assumes the responsibility of winning those titles.

“That is what we have in our hands to go forward.

“We are very, very happy and motivated to go forward with them and hopefully we can get a good response in the next ­couple of games. Our opponents are one step ahead because they have teams that have won in the past, that have stuck together for the last years and have that advantage that we don’t have,” he said.

Spurs were confident heading into the North London derby after winning their first two games of the season but Arsenal came out on top with a 1-0 victory and Villas-Boas wants to see a response from his players as they take on Norwich at home this weekend.

He said: “I am happy with the start but losing to Arsenal is not easy for any Spurs fan and now we have the responsibility to bounce back immediately.

“Winning or drawing or losing at ­Arsenal wouldn’t change the way we approach the game with Norwich and we just have to ­concentrate on winning it.

“It’s been a good international break. For us it went fine because we don’t have any injuries and now we can get back to the league.”