Birmingham City's jubilant match winner Sebastian Larsson hailed the best goal of his career and the impact of new manager Alex McLeish after his injury-time thunderbolt gave Blues' a stunning fourth victory of the season.

With yesterday's game level at 2-2 and sliding towards a draw the young Swede ushered in the new era when he picked up a loose ball and lashed an unstoppable 30-yard screamer past England goalkeeper Paul Robinson.

It was a fitting finish to an action packed match in which Birmingham took the lead with a first half Gary McSheffrey penalty but slipped behind to two goals from Robbie Keane.

The tireless Cameron Jerome then equalised with his only chance of the afternoon and to make matters worse for the Londoners in the 68th minute they had Keane sent off for a poor tackle on Fabrice Muamba. Spurs were incensed about the red card and claimed that referee Phil Dowd had been helped by a video replay on the side of the pitch and their complaints only intensified when Larsson struck at the death.

"I hit one a bit earlier which wasn't too good. I was a bit tired so I just thought I'd have a go and see what happened," Larsson confessed.

"I would say it's my best ever goal. Away to Tottenham, late on to get three points, it's not a bad feeling - as a former Arsenal player."

Last season Larsson also scored the goal that effectively sealed promotion for Birmingham when he struck against Sheffield Wednesday.

But as significant as that was, it did not bear comparison to last night's effort: "That one was a special goal because it was the last one before we got promoted.

"But this is another step up. This is the Premiership so I would have to say so it's better. It feels quite good. It's a massive win for us. To come to a place like Tottenham who are much better than what the table suggests is fantastic.

"We had to ride our luck at times but we showed a lot of bottle to stick with it when we went 2-1 down. We went all over the place for a few minutes and thought 'Oh no, let's not lose like this'. A lot of teams could have caved in, we had our backs against the wall for a few minutes but we managed to keep it at 2-1 and then Cameron came up with a great goal.

"That gave us the belief that we could do something. We were back in it and Keane getting sent off was a big moment.

"We would have been happy with one point but we started playing a bit more. We found some space, kept the ball.

"Olivier [Kapo] and Mikael [Forssell] came on - they are very, very good players to come on. They nearly won the game for us a few seconds before I scored."

For that McLeish must take an enormous amount of credit.

Instead of settling for a point following Jerome's goal the former Scotland man made the positive move of bringing on two attacking players. It was an example of the confidence he has in his new men and the belief with which he is trying to imbue his squad.

"He [McLeish] has told us what he wants us to do and that we should believe we can come to places like this - he believes in us," Larsson said. "I have been impressed, everyone has. It has been refreshing, it's a new start, new ideas, new tactics and a new way of playing football.

"It's always a fresh start when you get a new manager - everyone starts on scratch, you have to impress but it can't go on for one game, it has to go on for the rest of the season. We need to keep this going week in, week out. We know we are not going to win every game but if we keep showing that belief we will hopefully pick points."

McLeish said: "This was more than I expected. I hoped we would keep Spurs quiet and escape with a dream 1-0 victory where everything went perfect.

"To win 3-2 was certainly not how I thought it would finish. But this is only the start. It's a terrific boost for us in the fight to climb up the Premiership, especially as Spurs has such phenomenal quality on show."

McLeish was non-committal on the three major refereeing decisions from Dowd - the two penalties and red card - although he hinted that Keane's dismissal was harsh. The former Scotland boss said: "It's hard to say with the penalties.

"I think ours was deserved and (Spurs boss) Juande Ramos will think theirs was deserved. We probably both have our club's glasses on.

"On Keane I don't want to say because if I call it in his favour then it looks like I'm criticising the referee."