ANDRE Villas-Boas was pleased with the pre-season friendly workout his Tottenham Hotspur squad received against Stevenage in front of more than 5,000 fans at the Lamex Stadium last night (Wednesday).

Boro fell to a 2-0 defeat after second half goals from the Premier League side’s new signing Gylfi Sigurdsson and young Spaniard Yago Falque.

Speaking beside the pitch at the Lamex Stadium after the game, Villas-Boas said: “To come here and to play this game with such good movement is very pleasant to see.

“The level of competition will now increase during pre-season and we just have to make sure we continue to gain our fitness to be ready for the first game.”

Spurs fielded the majority of their first team squad with youngsters, including Harry Kane and Tom Carroll, getting a run-out alongside International stars such as their new Belgian defender Jan Vertonghan, William Gallas, Michael Dawson and Aaron Lennon.

“The development boys have been amazing throughout the night,” added Villas-Boas.

“For Sigurdsson and Jan [Vertonghen] it was obviously the first time that they put the Tottenham short [on] they completed the task very, very well, but praise to everybody because we had good fluid possession throughout the game, a bit more incisive in the second half, but the effort from everybody was there.”

Games such as the one against Stevenage are giving the former Chelsea manager the chance to run the rule over his playing staff before deciding which players to keep or sell.

“We are steadily assessing the squad, we have quite a big squad a lot of clubs are interested in our players this is the time to make the right decisions and we used these games to make the right decision,” added the 34-year-old.

“I think the team is going in the right direction, but we want to make it stronger.”

See the links above right for further coverage of the match.