Tottenham manager Andre Villas-Boas salutes players for ending club's 23-year wait for victory at Old Trafford Dempsey's first goal for Tottenham Hotspur following his August arrival from Fulham sealed a dramatic 3-2 win at Old Trafford - Tottenham's first since Dec 1989 - and inflicted United's second defeat of the campaign. And Villas-Boas, whose Chelsea team conceded a 3-0 lead to draw 3-3 at home to United last January, admitted that experience proved crucial in guiding Spurs to their long-awaited victory. When you see a team with so much desire hold onto a historic result, you can count on each other to do big things this year. Villas-Boas said. That's the most important lesson we take. At half time, we knew we weren't going to get out of Old Trafford without a fight. Last season, I went 3-0 up at Stamford Bridge and it wasn't enough. When United, scored things become different in the emotions of the players, but my players were brilliant because they were able to adapt. Gareth Bale was unable to train all week because of flu, Gylfi Sigurdsson was ill last night, and the team is exhausted. We wrote history and that must serve as an example to us. United manager Sir Alex Ferguson claimed his team deserved at least a point after trailing 2-0. "We never started in the first half," Ferguson said. We were able change things a bit and in the second half we were fantastic.