ENGLISH PREMIER LEAGUE: Tottenham 5 Burnley 0:HARRY REDKNAPP seems to have become football's version of the old woman who lived in a shoe: he has so many goalscorers he doesn't know what to do. But if Redknapp has a selection problem, it is one many of his contemporaries would die for. The Tottenham manager's shrewd manipulation of his attacking resources continues to bring the team some big wins, the latest of which buried Burnley on Saturday.

White Hart Lane began the afternoon chuntering about the retention of Robbie Keane – whose lone goal this season had come way back in the opening week – at the expense of Peter Crouch, who had just completed a League Cup hat-trick at Preston, but ended it celebrating Keane’s return to scoring form with four of Spurs’ five. He would have had a fifth himself had he reached Niko Kranjcar’s low centre in stoppage time, the Burnley defence having all but disappeared by then.

Burnley’s away record since arriving in the Premier League suggested they would be susceptible to good crosses and the 6ft 7in striker’s command of the air. Redknapp thought otherwise.

“We started the season with Robbie Keane and Jermain Defoe up front and we got four wins,” he explained. “I thought they would give Burnley’s big centre halves more problems than with a big man. With Robbie in there playing clever passes and dropping into space I thought we could open them up. Their centre-halves are straight up and down guys.”

Mostly down, actually. Clarke Carlisle and Andre Bikey were frequently confounded by the speed and movement of Tottenham’s forwards and the regularity with which Kranjcar and Jermaine Jenas, backed by Wilson Palacios and Tom Huddlestone, found them in space with well-timed, finely weighted through passes.

Burnley have now conceded 14 goals in four away league games while scoring none. This is a claret that does not travel well. In the first half on Saturday they troubled a Tottenham defence lacking first-choice centre-backs Ledley King and Jonathan Woodgate with pace, precision and imagination, and suffered a mean offside flag that denied Steven Fletcher an equaliser after Keane’s penalty had given Spurs the lead, Bikey having bought down Defoe. But once Keane and Kranjcar had set up Jenas to score Tottenham’s second just past the half-hour, it became clear Burnley were going to be overwhelmed.

Aaron Lennon’s pass, Huddlestone’s long lob and a knock-down from Crouch, who came on when Defoe dislocated a finger, created three more goals for Keane between the 74th and 87th minutes, the last slipping through the legs of Brian Jensen.

“Robbie’s a great player,” Redknapp said, “has been for years, and he takes his chances well.”

“I’ve never had more problems picking a team than the one I had today,” said Redknapp. “The guys up front, the goalkeeper, they were difficult decisions.”

Yet in goal Tottenham are less spoiled for choice. Carlo Cudicini was preferred to the improved but still vulnerable Heurelho Gomes on Saturday yet also looked accident-prone, spilling a free-kick from Tyrone Mears at 2-0 and seeing Robbie Blake’s follow-up shot hit a post.

Owen Coyle, the Burnley manager, quoted this near miss and Fletcher’s earlier disallowed goal as evidence that the scoreline had done his team an injustice.

But Burnley are in for more heavy defeats away from Turf Moor, where so far they have been invincible, if their defenders do not learn how to live with the Premier League’s pace, power and quicker thinking.

“We have to be as clinical as Spurs were today,” Coyle admitted, “and we need to defend better. We were punished, cruelly so.” (-Guardian Service)