IT was not for the sea air that Glenn Hoddle brought his Tottenham side down to the south coast last night,

having declared that he was taking the friendly against Portsmouth very seriously.

And Hoddle proved to be a man of his word as his star-studded side did a demolition job on Pompey before returning to their country training retreat just north of Petersfield.

But Pompey's faithful can take some heart from the all-out efforts of new striker Peter Crouch, who helped himself to another couple of goals after scoring the winner in a friendly at Newport on Saturday.

Pompey invested £1.25m of chairman Milan Mandaric's money to bring Crouch to Fratton from QPR and he responded after 15 minutes by rising head and shoulders above Gary Doherty to head in a long cross from Jason Crowe.

Tottenham had taken the lead a minute earlier with a fine strike from Teddy Sheringham. They recovered from the shock of finding themselves level when Steffen Iversen got past Darren Moore to flash home a cross from Goran Bunjevcevic.

Southampton born Darren Anderton looked comfortable in his new central midfield position for Spurs, from where an inspired through ball so nearly set up Sheringham again.

It was Pompey who came close to levelling just before the interval when Lee Bradbury got himself clear along the line to pick out Crouch whose header was superbly turned over by keeper Neil Sullivan.

Any hope of a Pompey second half revival was quickly put to rest by Hoddle's introduction of his six substitutes, all of them internationals.

And it was Stephen Clemence who engineered a move between himself, Sergei Rebrov and Mauricio Taricco before beating Pompey keeper Aaron Flahavan from just inside the area.

Spurs then went for the kill as Pompey reeledon the ropes and Rebrov plundered a couple more to make it five before Crouch grabbed his second, heading in a deep cross from Kevin Harper at the far post.

PORTSMOUTH: Flahavan, Crowe, Vincent, Hiley, Moore, Miglioranzi, Bradbury, O'Neil, Crouch, Quashie, Pitt. Subs: Harper, Edinburgh, Brady, Panopoulos, Gnohere, Tardif.

Tottenham: Sullivan, Carr, Doherty, Freund, Bunjevcevic, King, Anderton, Ziege, Iversen, Sheringham, Davies. Subs: Kelly, Poyet, Sherwood, Taricco, Ferdinand, Rebrov, Clemence, Leonhardsen, Perry.

Referee: S.Tomlin. Attendance: 15,144.