By Dan Harrison

Martin O'Neill hailed his rock solid back four after they produced yet another resolute performance against Tottenham.

The Villa boss also heaped praise on "exceptional" goalkeeper Brad Friedel for his part in Villa earning a hard-fought point at White Hart Lane.

Once again Richard Dunne and James Collins were immense at the back, and O'Neill believes they have transformed his Villa side.

"I think that the players who have come in to the football club just in the last week of the August transfer deadline have transformed us really," he said. "Dunne, Collins and Warnock - who has been injured the last couple of weeks - have been really fantastic.

"Considering we knew that Curtis Davies was going to be out for about four months with his injury, that was so, so important for us because I'm not sure where we'd be without them.

"I've had some very, very fine defenders in my time, both at Leicester and at Celtic. Some very, very fine players who had the same mentality as these lads.

"They are prepared to be very, very brave when it is demanded."

And the manager believes Friedel has been reinvigorated by the competition fellow American Brad Guzan has provided.

"I just think Brad has been exceptional," added the gaffer. "In the last number of weeks now, his performances have been terrific.

"He's having a great time. I think he has been reinvigorated with the coming in of Brad Guzan. They get on very well together but there is a bit of competition."

O'Neill was pleased with the way his side managed to contain Tottenham, who enjoyed a wealth of possession in the second half.

"It was difficult. I thought the first half was very, very open," he added. "I thought that we could maybe have made a wee bit more use of some of the counter-attacks we had. Generally we do.

"Tottenham are a very fine side and they pegged us back in the second half.

"In the last 20 minutes of the game, they were putting it into the penalty area, which is absolutely their prerogative to do that.

"Peter Crouch is a handful. He is more than a handful - he is a very, very fine player and he is terrific in the air.

"If we couldn't win the first one we were trying to scramble around to win the second one and we managed to see it through."