Emmanuel Adebayor’s solitary goal earned all three point for Tottenham against Everton as Tim Sherwood’s men moved up to fifth on the Premier League log.
The Togolese striker capitalised on a quickly-taken free-kick to drill past Tim Howard in goal for the Toffees.
“I am very happy for the team and winning the goal was important for confidence. We kept calm, we knew we had the quality to make a breakthrough and we did in the end,” Adebayor, 29, said after the match.
“We want to be winning games 3-0 but we want the fans to be patient. It’s not going our way at the moment.”
The former Arsenal and Real Madrid man’s 65th minute strike separated the two sides on points in a tightly-contested duel, dominated by Everton in the first-half.
The loss leaves the Goodison Park outfit sixth, five points behind fourth-placed Liverpool.
Everton, who were without their main striker Romelu Lukaku had a penalty appeal fall on deaf ears when Seamus Coleman went down under Etienne Capoue’s lunging challenge in injury-time.
Leon Osman had four opportunities to place Everton in the lead in the opening ten minutes, but could only muster a volley from the torrent of chances as goalkeeper Hugo Lloris parried his effort before the midfielder headed wide from the resultant corner.
Michael Dawson’s glancing header went over the bar as both side finished the half goalless.
Adebayor headed a corner kick over the bar before breaking the deadlock few minutes after the hour mark.
He expertly chested down Kyle Walker’s free-kick and fired left-footed past Howard.
On scoring his seventh goal of the ongoing campaign the striker continued: “The ball was great, the control was not bad and I had one choice- to finish with my left foot.”
By the time the hosts had scored with their first shot on target, Roberto Martinez’s men threat in front of goal was long on the wane and substitute Aiden Mcgeady produced what could have been their closest opportunity to leveling up scores, but his deflected shot was fielded by a scrambling Lloris.
Adebayor fired over from long range late on, before Coleman appeared to be tripped by Capoue in the area but referee Mark Clattenburg waved play on.
