Jermain Defoe broke West Brom's resistance to hand us a big 1-0 win at White Hart Lane on Tuesday night.

The striker was surrounded by four defenders but managed to spin and fire low into the corner for the only goal of the game in the 62nd minute.

Jermain's moment of magic came after we were frustrated by the determined Baggies for the first hour of the match.

It was his 10th goal of the campaign in all competitions and takes him to 111 for Spurs - nudging one ahead of the great Glenn Hoddle in the club's all-time list.

The win also means we're five points clear of Chelsea and six ahead of Arsenal in third with a game still in hand on our London rivals.

Harry Redknapp was forced into one change at the Lane as Scott Parker missed his first game after picking up a knee injury at Swansea on Saturday.

Defoe returned to partner Emmanuel Adebayor up front as we switched back to a 4-4-2 system with Rafa van der Vaart on the right.

Chances were few and far between in the first half as West Brom sat in with two lines of four protecting Ben Foster.

Gareth McAuley did well to block Luka Modric's goalbound effort in the first minute as we started brightly.

We had four corners in the opening five minutes and Defoe drilled just wide after playing one-twos with van der Vaart and Adebayor.

The next chance provided the moment of the half as Younes Kaboul strode forward and released Bale down the left, he fired across goal and van der Vaart diverted on target, only for Ben Foster to tip over.

There was a blow on the half-hour as Sandro collapsed in a heap and eventually limped off, replaced by Jake Livermore.

Foster was only troubled once more from van der Vaart's 25-yarder as we dominated but just couldn't carve the visitors open.

We were straight back onto the front foot in the second half as Adebayor backheeled to Defoe, who volleyed over from 16 yards with less than a minute gone.

Defoe then improvised but saw his backheel from van der Vaart's cross deflect just wide off Craig Dawson.

The breakthrough arrived just after the hour.

Again, we were patient in possession and finally picked a way through as Benoit Assou-Ekotto found van der Vaart, he played in Bale on the left and he fired in a cross that Defoe brought under control and despite looking well marshalled, managed to spin and strike past Foster from eight yards. It was a typical poacher's goal from the England international.

That should have been the signal for play to open up in our favour but we were then disrupted by two injuries in quick succession.

First, William Gallas limped off, replaced by Sebastien Bassong and then Kaboul and Livermore clash heads, leaving Livermore with a badly cut mouth and he had to be replaced by Niko Kranjcar.

We were down to nine men for a couple of minutes and this spurred the visitors into action.

James Morrison opened us up for the first time, hitting the left byline, but his dangerous cross could only find Assou-Ekotto.

Somen Tchoyi then brought the best out of Brad Friedel, a smart save to his left to turn away a piledriver from 25 yards.

A few nerves crept in as five minutes added time went up, but West Brom didn't really trouble us again. Paul Scharner's shot was blocked, a couple of corners came to nothing and we held on for another maximum haul.

Spurs (4-4-2): Friedel; Walker, Gallas (Bassong, 67), Kaboul, Assou-Ekotto; Van der Vaart, Modric, Sandro (Livermore, 30), Bale; Adebayor, Defoe. Subs: Cudicini, Bassong, Rose, Giovani, Kranjcar, Pavlyuchenko.

West Brom (4-2-3-1): Foster; Jones, McAuley, Dawson, Shorey; Thorne (Tchoyi, 79), Scharner; Cox, Dorrans (Morrison, 66), Thomas (Jara, 27); Odemwingie. Subs: Fulop, Tamas, Mantom, Fortune.

Goal: Spurs - Defoe (62).

Attendance: 36,062.

Referee: Mr M Halsey.

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