Paul Lambert demands an instant fightback

Paul Lambert today demanded a reaction from his players against Tottenham as Villa look to put their Stamford Bridge nightmare behind them.

The claret and blues were thrashed 8-0 by Chelsea three days ago in what was a steep learning curve for Lambert's young charges as well as their heaviest Premier League defeat.

And the Scot has called for a response from them against Spurs at Villa Park this evening in the same way they quickly got over a 5-0 defeat to Manchester City earlier in the season. "Do I expect a reaction? Yes. Definitely," said the Villa boss.

"We have to set the tone now. We were on a good run of form of late and I've not got any excuses. We were well beaten and credit to Chelsea who were excellent.

"The players have done it before when they came back from the Manchester City defeat and they went on a little run. They have to do the exact same here. We have taken the criticism that has come our way, but we will bounce back and we have to. There is no point in feeling sorry for ourselves."

Lambert will check on the fitness of French winger Charles N'Zogbia after he missed the trip to London with a knee injury.

"Charles hurt his knee in training last week. He has been receiving treatment so we'll have to see how he's feeling," added Lambert.

Villa midfielder Barry Bannan claimed his team-mates will come out with "all guns blazing" against Spurs with the players eager to repay supporters.

"It's going to be hard to pick ourselves up after that, obviously 8-0 is the worst score we've had since I've been here," said Bannan.

"Everyone in the dressing room was down, as we should be. We'll try to get this out of the way, pick up the things we did wrong and hopefully we can come out all guns blazing.

"We've only lost to the top three teams in the past few games and we were playing well before Chelsea. Hopefully we can get back on the right track."