Premier League scores, Week 21: Harry Kane finally hits top form

With 23 goals across eight games, the Premier League offered up plenty of entertainment on Saturday. Unless you watched Watford-Middlesbrough, that is. They didn’t entertain at all.

There were big wins for Hull and Burnley in the relegation race, while Harry Kane stole the show on the day with an excellent hat trick in the Spurs’ demolition of West Brom. But the big story was probably the players who didn’t play — Dimitri Payet and Diego Costa — and how much their teams didn’t need them.

Saturday’s scores

Tottenham Hotspur 4-0 West Bromwich Albion
Burnley 1-0 Southampton
Hull City 3-1 Bournemouth
Sunderland 1-3 Stoke City
Swansea City 0-4 Arsenal
Watford 0-0 Middlesbrough
West Ham 3-0 Crystal Palace
Leicester City 0-3 Chelsea

Despite struggling with an early injury and not scoring at nearly the pace of his last two seasons, Kane had been a solid contributor for Spurs up until this weekend, with 12 goals in 18 games. But on Saturday, the best version of Kane showed up. Poor West Brom.

And just like that, Kane is tied with Zlatan Ibrahimovic for second on the league’s goal-scoring charts, just one behind Diego Costa. Spurs have stunningly ascended the Premier League table as well, moving up to second after six consecutive victories —including an impressive win against Chelsea and a 4-1 blowout away to Southampton. With Kane fully fit and hitting the target, Spurs look like top four favorites.

The Clarets had nine shots against Southampton. None of them was particularly good. The Saints had 20.

Burnley won anyway. This has become the Clarets’ modus operandi this season, and it no longer matters if it’s unsustainable. They have 26 points, sitting 10 ahead of the drop zone. They probably only need to win a couple more games to stay in the Premier League. They’ve already solidified their position against their inevitable regression.

Much like Burnley, Watford and Middlesbrough aren’t very good, and it’s unlikely to matter. They’re very much in the relegation fight, but in a clearly superior position to the current bottom three. So while up against each other, they both put safety first, played out a boring 0-0 draw and walked away with a point each. Mission accomplished, and apologies to anyone who had to watch.

This week, Chelsea striker Diego Costa and West Ham attacking midfielder Dimitri Payet both made news by demanding to leave their clubs in the January transfer window. Both were subsequently kept out of their respective squads on Saturday.

And it didn’t matter! Chelsea and West Ham both won their games 3-0 and in spectacular fashion, with each player’s replacement turning in an excellent performance. Eden Hazard moved to the center forward spot for Chelsea and recorded an assist inside 10 minutes, while Pedro and Willian also had great games. Manuel Lanzini slotted into Payet’s playmaker role and scored a goal while providing two key passes and turning in a surprising defensive contribution.

The old timers who constantly complain about the rise of player power will be thrilled. Costa and Payet were both exiled for their attitudes, their teams excelled without them and now power is back with the clubs in these two situations.

With Arsenal up 4-0, Arsene Wenger saw an opportunity to give Sanchez some rest and get Danny Welbeck some game time. Sanchez, who had just scored and never wants to come out of a game, was furious.

Right on cue, here’s Piers Morgan! Sorry to signal boost him, but he’s often the genuine conversation-starter on this kind of stuff.

And now we’ll get a week of debate. Is Sanchez showing that he’s unhappy at Arsenal? Or is he a fiery competitor, the likes of which Arsenal needs more of? Ultimately, it’s probably neither. It’s good that he’s passionate; he should also reign it in a bit at 4-0.

The Tigers made a surprising coaching change last week, replacing Mike Phelan with Marco Silva, who’s been successful in Portugal and Greece. He switched to a 3-5-2 formation while reinstating Abel Hernandez, and this was the result.

There are still lots of questions left to be answered about whether Hull has enough talent to stay up, but this was certainly a promising start.

Stoke City went up 3-0 in the first half at the Stadium of Light, and a lot of Sunderland fans headed to the exits before halftime. By second half stoppage time, the stadium was about 75 percent empty. But it looks like the Black Cats were slightly more unlucky than they were horrible.

We’re not here to shame Sunderland fans for being disgusted with how their team started. It’s been a long couple of seasons... OK, long lifetime... for Sunderland supporters, who have been asked to tolerate a lot of very bad teams. But the Black Cats aren’t hopeless, and based on Moyes’ record at Everton, he should be able to build them into something their fans can be proud of if he’s given some time.

Everton takes on Manchester City at 8:30 a.m., followed by this weekend’s big game at 11 a.m., Manchester United vs. Liverpool. Both of them will be shown on NBCSN, and can be seen online via NBC Sports here. For listings from outside the United States, check out Live Soccer TV.