Andre Villas-Boas says his team have got into a habit of scoring late goals after another injury-time winner secured a 3-2 victory over West Ham.

Spurs were victims of a number of late goals earlier in the campaign but have turned their fortunes around of late, scoring in the 90th minute or later in their last three consecutive matches.

"I think it has a knock-on effect, normally when you suffer late goals you end up suffering more because you believe it will hapen again and when you score late goals you believe you are going to score them again," Villas-Boas said.

"We were very, very persistent after the game went to 2-2, we didn't drop back and try to play for the point which I think away in the Premier League is always positive.

"We kept on pushing for that winning goal and we got rewarded in the end for doing exactly that.

"It was a very, very competitive game, we could have probably got a better margin earlier in the game - it was difficult against West Ham - they are very objective, aggressive, direct, they put in a lot of long balls to deal.

"The players were very brave in the second half to keep that impetus and the reward was excellent for everyone."

Villas-Boas added: "The team is very committed to its objectives - we were handed the opportunity tonight of going third and not only that, but building a nine-point distance from Everton which is extremely important for the team.

"We have a further opportunity against Arsenal to hopefully put them seven points away- it's going to be a hard game.

"So I think the conditions were there for us to play this game against West Ham very, very seriously and I think that's why you saw the players all coming together at the end."