UK Football

By Ken Ferris

LONDON, Oct 26 (Reuters) - Tottenham Hotspur produced their first Premier League victory of the season on Sunday as the club welcomed new manager Harry Redknapp with open arms following an awful start to the season that sees them bottom of the table.

Spurs comfortably beat Bolton Wanderers 2-0 at White Hart Lane with goals in each half from striker Roman Pavlyuchenko and his replacement Darren Bent from the penalty spot to bring some cheer to a club that had been in despair under Juande Ramos.

"If we'd got beat today it would have been a lovely week coming up but today has given us a bit of confidence and brought a smile back on the players' faces and I think they enjoyed today so they should be confident," said Redknapp.

Asked why he decided to join Spurs, he said: "Tottenham is a big club even if they're languishing at the bottom of the league, you see the stadium, the whole set up... I could have come 18 months ago in all honesty when Martin Jol was here.

"I nearly went to Newcastle and then I didn't go and then lots of people said, 'He doesn't want to take the challenge of a bigger club on' but once this happened I couldn't really turn (it down). I'd have probably regretted it the rest of my life."

PLEASANTLY SURPRISED

The former Portsmouth boss, who was only appointed on Saturday night to replace sacked Spaniard Ramos with Spurs paying five million pounds ($7.79 million) in compensation, seemed pleasantly surprised by the quality of his new players.

"I was sitting there and they're zipping the ball around -- Bolton couldn't get it the first 20 minutes -- and I'm thinking how can they be bottom of the league?

"I mean when I went back to Portsmouth and took over the first game we played I thought, 'Oh my God how am I going to get this lot out of it?' because we were so poor.

"But this team here today... (captain) Ledley King when he's fit, what a player. The boy alongside him plays for Croatia, (Vedran) Corluka, (David) Bentley can play... the ball from Bentley today was world class for the (first) goal.

"Maybe it's confidence, I don't know, but I'll find out as I get to know them all," Redknapp told reporters.

Asked about his aims for the season he added: "The priority has got to be league points, we've got to get ourselves up that league table. Anything else is a bonus."

His first game in full charge is the visit to rivals Arsenal on Wednesday followed by Liverpool at home next Saturday.