Tottenham Hotspur produced a scintillating attacking display to defeat Hull City 5-1, with a hat-trick from Jermain Defoe.

This blog’s influence is obviously spreading fast. No sooner do I pronounce Defoe as our key man this season than he comes up with three gems like those. He looks lean, well-muscled and, most significantly, willing to take the coaches’ advice, constantly moving into channels between the defenders rather than running into dead ends.

Defoe’s second and third were not only well-taken – the ball was completely under his control from the moment he took possession – but also breathtakingly executed, that split second’s dramatic pause before he pulled the trigger adding to the thrill as the ball creamed the back of the net, keeper helpless. Brilliant goalscoring, absolutely brilliant.

Also, as ahem! I suggested last week, he’s thinking about it, timing his runs to perfection rather than being trapped offside. His first was the least dramatic but perhaps the most telling in terms of his development this season. He stayed calm and picked his spot.

Hull obligingly made it simple enough for Hudd, Keane and Luka to slide the ball into those channels. The huge gaps between their defence and midfield were ripe for exploitation and their ineffectual attack seldom posed problems. The familiar manner in which Spurs surrendered the initiative after that stupid free kick was sadly reassuring. Bet in your head you wrote the match report right there, huh? Yet again allowing inferior teams a probably winning come back, Spurs’ soft underbelly, where’s the guts? How many times, how many sodding times…

Stronger teams than Hull would have turned the screw at that point but Tottenham kept playing and passing, better in possession than last season even when we weren’t getting anywhere in particular. However, this is about those moments of explosive brilliance. This is about having great fun watching Tottenham tear a team apart, about expecting moments of brilliance, not despairing at their absence, not hoping but believing we will score.

I’m still not convinced about Keane and Defoe together but huge kudos to Harry Redknapp for having the guts to select them as well as enabling them to combine so efficiently. Here’s me having a page on his quotes and I can’t find the one about this topic from last year, but I’m sure when asked about the problems of playing Keane and Defoe, he corrected the questioner, saying other managers had had problems….And Crouch coming on as sub – how reassuring is that??!!

So let’s leave the portents and enjoy it for a few days. A fantastic game. Thanks JD.