SPURS 3, Wanderers 1: THE Premiership might be the only place to be but not when you are at the foot of the table.

The thrill of playing in arguably the best league in Europe, if not the World, is impossible to quantify and the pride in seeing your team, however modest in size and aspiration, competing against the best that money can buy is immeasurable.

But the enjoyment for players and fans alike suddenly wanes when you are bottom of the pile.

As Mike Whitlow so aptly puts it: "Football is meant to be fun but it's no fun when you are losing and when you're bottom of the table it hurts. It really hurts."

And this from a player so passionate about the game that he can smile through the most gruelling of pre-season training sessions!

Whitlow and Wanderers had a worried look about them as they left White Hart Lane last night.

They had performed reasonably well; shown resilience, good organisation and determination to frustrate the Spurs attack and displayed a good deal of character to conjure up an equaliser within five minutes of going behind.

But in the English Premiership it is not enough to do just half a job. Miss chances and you miss the boat, drop your guard for just a moment and you drop points.

The consequence, with just nine games played, is that Wanderers are now facing a crisis of confidence with even the optimists starting to have their doubts.

With Liverpool, Arsenal, Spurs, Manchester United and Middlesbrough behind them, positive-thinking fans should be looking forward to the next three fixtures with a certain relish.

The big guns - at least the current top five teams in the country - are out of the way and the theory is that there should be rich pickings when they meet clubs more to their liking.

But life is not like that. Wanderers have dropped to the foot of the Premiership table for the first time since they won promotion with that glorious play-off triumph at Cardiff 17 months ago and Sunderland, Birmingham and West Brom are suddenly pressure games of immense importance.

"They are now massive, massive games for us - even at this early stage of the season," Sam Allardyce acknowledged as he surveyed the damage of this sixth league defeat and set about trying to find a way out of a predicament he knows could all too easily spiral out of control.

"This means extra pressure which means we must keep our nerve and keep our bottle and make sure we get some points out of these three games to get us out of the bottom three as soon as we possibly can.

"The more you stay there, the more pressure you are under, the more nervous the players get and the more confidence they lose. It becomes a big, deep black hole!"

Spurs boss Glenn Hoddle predicts Wanderers will beat the drop but he could afford to be in generous mood after seeing Robbie Keane - the striker he bought from Leeds in a £7 million deadline day swoop - produce two stunning strikes to set up a victory that lifted his side to third in the table - above Manchester United and Middlesbrough and in the slipstream of their North London rivals Arsenal.

Keane is mustard. He was a threat from the first whistle with his darting runs, not only prepared to feed off Teddy Sheringham or the excellent Simon Davies but also capable of manufacturing openings for himself - little wonder he has changed hands for the best part of £40 million and is still only 23.

Yet Wanderers had managed to keep him and the rest of the Spurs attack out of harm's way with some outstanding defensive work.

Whitlow, Gudni Bergsson, Anthony Barness and Simon Charlton would collectively end the day under fire for their defensive deficiencies but there was little wrong with their diligence in the first half.

Allardyce made three changes in the wake of the Middlesbrough mauling and the result was more energy in midfield and an increase in pace up front with Michael Ricketts - said to have been a Spurs target before Hoddle settled on Keane - giving Dean Richards and Chris Perry plenty to think about. But strikers flourish on confidence and since winning his England cap in February, the big Brummie has struggled to hit the heights that a year ago made him one of the most feared finishers in the country.

At his peak he would have converted the chance Gardner set up for him in the 14th minute and would certainly have at least hit the target 11 minutes into the second half when, again after some excellent work by the Jamaican, he missed a chance to test Kasey Keller.

Wanderers paid dearly for the miss two minutes later when Davies had time and space to knock a deep left wing cross from Goran Bunjevcevic back into the danger zone, where Keane raced in unmarked to put Spurs ahead.

Having seen Wanderers concede 13 goals in three games on this ground last season, supporters braced themselves for an avalanche but five minutes later another Gardner-inspired move ended with Kevin Nolan's brilliant chip being converted by an equally-impressive finish by Youri Djorkaeff.

No Bolton team had won at White Hart Lane for 43 years and, although Spurs will justifiably argue that defeat would have been a travesty, Ricketts at his ruthless best might have made it 2-1.

Instead, the crucial third goal went in at the other end where Davies fed Gus Poyet into the area and, much to Allardyce's annoyance, the Uruguayan was able to tee-up Keane for a near-post finish.

"We let Poyet into our box and nobody tracked him," the manager said angrily. "We allowed him to turn and pick out Robbie Keane."

When Spurs got their third in the last minute of normal time it was a fitting reward for Davies, who had made such a big contribution that he had Hoddle praising him to high heaven after the game. But, in truth, the scoreline was harsh on Wanderers.

Nowhere near as harsh as Allardyce himself though. He saw no consolation in a much-improved performance, took no satisfaction from knowing his defenders had done particularly well in the first half and drew no comfort at all from knowing how close they had been to taking at least a point.

Instead he was deeply critical of the lapses in concentration by his defenders that, in the end, made it easy for Spurs.

The message was blunt. Don't talk about better performances, just get better results.