Tottenham struggled to defeat Blackpool in last night's Carling Cup tie to mark Juande Ramos' first game in charge.

Spurs reached the quarter-finals with a 2-0 win courtesy of goals from Robbie Keane and Pascal Chimbonda, but there was nervousness in the defence Ramos inherited from Martin Jol this week.

"I would say the team needs to improve in all areas, in attack and defence, but this is a team of great professionals and I hope it will improve quickly," Ramos said.

Gary Taylor-Fletcher smacked the crossbar with a header in the second half and also forced a fine save from Paul Robinson.

Ramos still saw enough to give him encouragement ahead of the clash against Middlesbrough on Saturday when Spurs will look to climb out of the bottom three of the Barclays Premier League.

"The most important thing was the victory," the Spaniard added. "The team's played well generally, they had spells of good football. We have to look forward to the next round.

"On the positive side they've shown great willingness to play and fought very hard, physically it was very hard because it was three days since the last game. The negative side was the chances Blackpool had."

Blackpool boss Simon Grayson was introduced to Ramos before the game as his side were staying in the same Waltham Abbey hotel.

"Full credit for him that he came to speak to me at the hotel," said Grayson. "His English was fine but he didn't say he had a big fry-up or anything."