He may have the air of a man who found a tenner only to discover someone had made off with his significantly chunkier wallet, but Andre Villas-Boas must have felt all his Christmases had come at once at White Hart Lane on Sunday.

• Blog: 4-4-2 might be best for Spurs

Not only was his side second best on Sunday and still managed to come away with their first home win of the Premier League season, but they did so with an own goal and a breakaway with at least two off-the-ball fouls.

PA PhotosBobby Zamora celebrates his goal for QPR

Luck seems to have left Mark Hughes at the moment. After losing Andy Johnson, Anton Ferdinand and Fabio last week, and still unable to use Samba Diakite and Stephane Mbia, Hughes lost Jose Bosingwa to a hamstring problem immediately after Aaron Lennon had left him for dead.

But to the positives.

Nedum Onouha came across to left-back to compensate for Kieron Dyer at right-back. Both put in exceptional displays against some of the most mobile wing forwards in the Premier League.

And a patched-up QPR then put together their best half of football in probably decades, scoring one thanks to a sublime through ball from Alejandro Faurlin to Bobby Zamora and producing the best from Spurs keeper Brad Friedel on a number of occasions. It was a performance that had the White Hart Lane faithful booing their team off at the break.

But it was not to last.

Spurs came out in the second half with intent, moving Gareth Bale from left-back to left wing, but QPR still looked the better side, controlling the midfield and probing the edge of Tottenham's box.

But then calamity: Zamora lost the ball in Spurs final third, and Spurs pushed up the other end and forced a corner. Then a hopeful punt in from a clearance ended up in the back of the net after Faurlin turned his back on a Spurs player and flipped with his legs above head height - a rare moment of aversion from the brave Argentinian.

The second held more to skulduggery than fortune. While Spurs broke down the left, Onouha was tripped (most certainly) and Esteban Granola hampered (50/50 decision) as they covered back - which meant that Spurs had a 3 v 2, leaving Bale free to force a cracking save out of Julio Cesar, but more significantly there was no one to cover Jermain Defoe who converted the rebound from six yards.

The Rs pressed, but the fight seemed to drain a little - although Hoilett should have grabbed the equaliser after being played in by Zamora, but he wanted too long on the ball.

At the back Clint Hill and Ryan Nelsen looked solid, particularly late on when Spurs hit the Rs on the counter-attack. And Cesar continues to make a world of difference.

But to me, man of the match was Kieron Dyer who - at very late notice - looked solid defensively, while enterprising going forward. Is it too early to uncross our fingers?

Now the debate starts: can we afford to play good football and lose? Or will the pressure to "win ugly" come early this season? If we play like that all season, we'll beat far better sides than Spurs (5th last year).

West Ham on Monday is fast becoming a question and answer session.

Follow Sean Smith on Twitter @seanshorn

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