Tottenham Hotspur continued their impressive start to the season as they hammered Aston Villa 4-0 at Villa Park in a Capital One Cup clash on Tuesday night.

Jermain Defoe opened the scoring on the stroke of half-time before Paulinho netted his third goal for the club four minutes after the break.

Nacer Chadli confirmed the result with five minutes to go but there was still enough time for Defoe to sink his second of the night with a goal in stoppage time.

Spurs were playing their third game in three days but they pressed forward against their Premier League opponents and Defoe nodded home just before the break after getting onto a lofted ball from Lewis Holtby.

A bizarre incident after the break saw Villa denied a penalty when Jan Vertonghen yanked Nicklas Helenius' shorts down to his knees after stumbling while trying to recover. The latter still managed to get a shot off which sailed over and the referee somehow decided to award a goal kick instead of a penalty.

Should the referee have given the penalty, Vertonghen would have been likely to receive his marching orders, and salt was rubbed into Villa's wounds two minutes later as Paulinho fired in Tottenham's second.

Chadli then steered in his first goal for Spurs with five minutes left in the game before Defoe completed the result in the dying minutes.

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