Shootout at the Fantasy Factory was a 1973 Traffic album but it could well describe the Premiership this weekend as winning teams pasted the competition. Goals scored 21. Goals against 2.
The teams included a shell shocked West Ham, crumbling to Charlton, 4-0. Then a well oiled softly purring Spurs attack methodically dismantled Bolton, 4-1 as they played Keane-less for about for an hour. Liverpool lambasted Sheffield United, 4-0 and Everton took apart Watford, 3-0. On Sunday, Blackburn on the strength of two Shibani Nonda strikes (including what must be the fastest Premiership goal this season) felled Portsmouth, 3-0. It was left to Newcastle (0-1) and Fulham (1-2) losses to Wigan and Man Utd, respectively for the more usual scoreline.
Is this part of a general letdown by certain teams? West Ham has been extremely fragile and at this point relegation bound Leeds Utd could take them out. So it was not a major surprise that Charlton snuffed out their dim hopes of crawling out of the cellar. But the Trotters? Wasn’t Big Sam the one coach that got his boys ready weekend in and weekend out to play ball? Truth be told, they came upon an inspired Spurs team that lived up to expectation for the first time. Blackburn’s attack cannot be described as high powered plus they were missing Benni McCarthy. Portsmouth was done in by a demoralizing Nonda goal scored within the first minute and never really recovered. Some atrocious goal keeping by David James helped Blackburn too.