Andre Villas-Boas has pledged to go for the jugular as Tottenham look to navigate their way past Lyon in the Europa League.

Last night Gareth Bale inspired under-par Spurs to a 2-1 victory against the French side, netting free-kicks in stoppage time of both halves.

The victory puts the north Londoners in the driving seat going into the return leg of their last-32 tie in France next week.

Villas-Boas believes an attacking mindset will give Tottenham the best chance of progressing as Samuel Umtiti's superb away goal leaves the tie delicately poised.

"It is difficult," the Portuguese said. "Their goal can obviously represent a lot for them.

"We are a team that normally scores away from home so we hope to cancel their away goal in some way.

"We are going to set out the same way - to try to attack and score.

"Even if they score before, we are going to attack to try to cancel out this goal. Obviously it gives them an initial advantage in the beginning."

It would have been much harder for Tottenham were it not for Bale's moments of magic.

The Welsh winger has now scored seven goals in his last five matches for club and country, again leading to suggestions he is among the best players in the world.

Asked if Bale was up there with the Real Madrid star Cristiano Ronaldo, Villas-Boas said: "Yeah, he is going through a great individual moment.

"I think you have to recognise that. He is scoring lots of goals for the team and I think this is his best goalscoring season for Tottenham.

"You can see the player is enjoying his football and getting a buzz out of it.

"Once things like this happen, individual players keep their motivation high and they are able to help the team reach their objectives."

Bale's last-minute winner sparked wild celebrations and led to an altercation involving Spurs assistant head coach Steffen Freund and the Lyon bench.

"I didn't see it," Villas-Boas said. "I saw they were annoyed with each other.

"It is normal as there is not a lot of proximity between the two benches.

"Obviously there is a lot of emotions going through and Steffen represents all of his passion for Tottenham.

"I think it is normal. They will give us a hard time in the second leg."

Lyon counterpart Remi Garde also claimed to have missed the incident, instead focusing his attention on the performance of Portuguese referee Pedro Proenca and his team of officials.

"Let's see what sort of referee we get in the second leg," he said.

"Let's see if he blows for free-kicks that are free-kicks, or free-kicks that aren't really free-kicks. Let's wait and see."