FORGET Guy Fawkes Night – Wanderers reserved the real fireworks for Saturday lunchtime in order to bring Spurs crashing back down to earth with a bang at the Reebok.

Dismissed as mere opposition to the team that ran riot against Inter Milan on Tuesday night, Owen Coyle’s team talk was all-but written for him. Extinguish the Londoners’ bonfire by any means possible.

And who better to lead the charge than Kevin Davies, the striker who seems to make an annual event of Tottenham’s visits to this part of Lancashire.

With Fabio Capello watching on alongside chairman, and FA board member Phil Gartside in the crowd, no words were necessary. The captain blew Harry Redknapp’s game plan to pieces quicker than you can say Gunpowder Plot.

Two goals, one fine assist for Martin Petrov and a swashbuckling performance that might have convinced the England boss to stay and request an encore, had he not some more scouting to do down the road at Old Trafford.

If the 33-year-old doesn’t make the squad for the friendly against France on November 17, there’s something wrong. Maybe now, they’ll even admit that in the capital.

It was no one-man show. Davies was backed-up by some stellar displays from Fabrice Muamba, Johan Elmander and Stuart Holden, and centre-half pairing Zat Knight and Gary Cahill. But, having spent the last week listening to how great Gareth Bale is playing at the moment, special praise must be reserved for Gretar Steinsson and Chung-Yong Lee, who restricted the Welsh winger’s input chiefly to set plays.

From minute one Wanderers set about the visitors like men possessed. Missing Aaron Lennon, Rafael van der Vaart, Michael Dawson, Ledley King and Jermain Defoe, the men from White Hart Lane did have a vulnerable look about them but being that the net cost of their starting XI was something like five times that of the Whites, it’s hard to feel sorry for them.

From the off, some Spurs players didn’t look like they fancied a cold afternoon on Winter Hill. Benoit Assou-Ekotto wasted possession with alarming regularity, gifting an opportunity to Matt Taylor after only 25 seconds.

Taylor had been preferred to the fit-again Petrov, who started on the bench, and rewarded his manager’s decision by seemingly being involved in every goalscoring opportunity for the first hour. Had his sights been slightly sharper, he might have wrestled the headlines from his captain.

Wanderers deserved the lead on 31 minutes. The ball broke perfectly to Taylor from Muamba’s excellent tackle on Sandro, allowing him to tee up Davies, whose left-footed drive beat a rather cumbersome Heurelho Gomes and nestled into the bottom corner.

TV pundits claimed it was the big front man’s first Premier League goal from outside the area – a fact he denied vehemently after the game. And he was right; the Carling Opta stats reckon he has four such strikes to his name, including one against his boyhood club Sheffield United.

Spurs threatened an equaliser as Bale sprang briefly into life and delivered a couple of dangerous crosses. Fortunately for the Whites, his team-mates were still on a different page.

Bale continued his one-man assault with a free-kick that clipped the angle of post and bar after the break, during which Redknapp had brought on Roman Pavlyuchenko to try and add some support for Peter Crouch up front. But Harry’s plan was scuppered moments later as Elmander pulled back a clever cross for Steinsson to sweep home his first league goal in nearly 17 months.

At this point, the massive difference between life under Owen Coyle and that under Gary Megson was put firmly into focus. The Wanderers of 12 months ago would have retreated to their 18-yard box to defend what they had. In fact, the same tactic cost them victory against Spurs in last season’s corresponding fixture.

Not so these days, as the attacking waves just kept on flowing. Muamba hit the side netting after a mazy dribble, Taylor clipped the post with a nonchalant volley from the edge of the box and Cahill put a dipping volley just wide of the mark. It was thrilling stuff.

It should have been game over when Davies added a third from the penalty spot, after Chung-Yong had been barged over by the hapless Assou-Ekotto.

But somehow Tottenham mounted a comeback, as first Alan Hutton cut inside Paul Robinson to curl a beautiful shot into the top corner, then just nine minutes later, Pavlyuchenko smashed a volley past Jaaskelainen that stunned the stadium into silence.

Was Coyle’s attacking philosophy going to backfire? If so, a blatant handball by Assou-Ekotto between the two Spurs goals would have given us yet another talking point.

So too would an awful stamp by Tom Huddlestone on Elmander two minutes from time, undetected by referee Chris Foy and the fourth official, but one would suggest not by the FA.

Two minutes into injury time it looked for a brief second as if the comeback was complete, as William Gallas popped up unmarked and bearing in on goal. Thankfully, Holden’s 42nd successful tackle of the season arrived with impeccable timing, and seconds later Wanderers were celebrating a fourth goal.

Cahill launched the ball forward for Davies, who flicked superbly into the path of substitute Petrov, whose fresh legs took him past Younes Kaboul before flicking the ball past Gomes for his second goal of the season.

Cue more unbridled joy, which had barely died down by the time Foy brought the game to a close.

With Christmas fast approaching, Wanderers might well want to get this one out on DVD and in the club shop as soon as possible.