Goal.com

The Latics boss has expressed his excitement at the change in mentality he senses among his players this season as they climbed to 12th place in the Premier League table

Wigan Athletic manager Roberto Martinez hailed his players and dismissed the influence of luck after the Latics delivered a shock blow to Tottenham's push for a top four spot by winning 1-0 at White Hart Lane.

Martinez's side won for the second successive time in the Premier League and moved up to 12th place in the table thanks to Ben Watson's second-half goal.

The Spanish coach has insisted that his side was good value for the result and was keen to emphasise that their performance was not overly defensive in nature.

"I'm sure that many people will look at the result and think maybe Wigan went there with a defensive mindset and they sneaked a little win," Martinez told reporters.

"But what I'm very, very proud of today is that we came here, we were ourselves for 90 minutes, we had to adapt to what Spurs wanted to do but it's fair to say we deserved our three points and we created numerous occasions to add a bigger scoreline."

Martinez believes that Wigan's good play off the ball made it difficult for Spurs to find any rhythm in their play and denied that his team caught Andre Villas-Boas' side on a bad day.

"Many people will say Spurs had a bad day, but I wouldn't agree with that at all," he added. "I thought we had to work very hard, we were brave, we stopped Spurs from playing really high up the pitch.

"The concentration and the partnerships all over the park help each other to stop Spurs having a big say on the ball. I think it would be very unfair to say Spurs had a bad day today.

"We were playing against a Spurs side that in my eyes will definitely be in the Champions League places, they should be challenging for the title, they went to Old Trafford and beat Manchester United."

Wigan have been notoriously slow starters in previous seasons and Martinez credited their more confident beginning to the current campaign to a fundamental change in mentality at the Lancashire club.

"That's been the hard work, it's just a question of mentality," he reflected. "That's why I'm so, so proud today.

"To get back to back wins this early in the season is just a matter of approach of the squad, of having a winning mentality of wanting to come to White Hart Lane and getting three points rather than just accepting defeat and going through the motions.

"It's a mentality we didn't have last season, or previous season. Today, without having to win, we wanted to win, and that, for me, is the biggest, biggest change we've made at the football club in a long, long time."