Aston Villa manager Paul Lambert on Tuesday told his players to put behind them the humiliating 8-0 defeat by Chelsea last Sunday and focus on getting a good result against Spurs on Wednesday. The former Scotland international midfielder - who moved from Norwich to take over at Villa last summer - said he had experienced such moments in his playing career and the important thing was to move on quickly from them.

"It can happen. I've been on the end of it before and I'm pretty sure some of their lads would have been on the end of heavy defeats," said the 43-year-old, who as a player won the 1997 Champions League with German side Borussia Dortmund. "But you have to bounce back and it's about how we react. You can't dwell on it and start feeling sorry for yourselves.

"As a footballer, if you start feeling sorry for yourselves, there is only one place you are going to go. "It is important that we try and bounce back very quickly. We just never turned up on Sunday and that is the harsh reality of football." Lambert, capped 40 times by Scotland, said people should look at the overall picture which had seen Villa enter the Chelsea clash unbeaten in six games after making a poor start to the campaign.

Copyright Agence France-Presse, 2012