Premier League season – Who’s Hot and Who’s Not?

Who's Hot and Who's Not?

A few keepers deserve some praise this year. Gomes at Tottenham proved many of his critics, including me, wrong and played a big part in Tottenham’s success. Shay Given was great for Manchester City, Brad Friedel was his usual consistent self for Aston Villa, Tim Howard and Paul Robinson had good seasons at Everton and Blackburn and Mark Schwartzer at Fulham and Jussi Jaaskelainen at Bolton continue to be two of the best.

Above all of them, however, was Joe Hart who was simply exceptional for Birmingham. The young keeper on loan from Manchester City was voted as the Premier League’s top keeper by the other Premier League players and I am not going to argue with them. He played a massive part in Birmingham’s amazing season and he is surely England’s best keeper.

Ben Foster didn’t exactly cover himself in glory when he got a chance to establish himself as Manchester United’s number one. In fact, he pretty quickly established himself as United’s number three!

England’s Robert Green had a poor season at West Ham yet seems to remain Fabio Capello’s first choice. Does anyone else think he is better than Joe Hart?

The one keeper who seemed to make a mistake in almost all of the games he played this season was Brian Jenson at Burnley. That is probably a little harsh because he was by far the busiest keeper in the league and he did make some great saves, but he is not, never has been and never will be, a Premier League goalkeeper.

Ledley King and Michael Dawson have been great at Tottenham and Patrice Evra was his usual classy self at United. Richard Dunne at Villa made Manchester City wish they hadn’t sold him. Brede Hangeland has been immense at Fulham and Gary Cahill has shone at Bolton.

Above all of them though, is a man who stepped in at right back for Chelsea when they were struggling in that position and went on to make it look as though he had played there all his life. Serbian centre-back Branislav Ivanovic has been magnificent for Chelsea. Whilst Carvalho and Alex shared duties with differing degrees of success, John Terry had problems on and off the pitch and Ashley Cole’s life fell very publicly apart. Ivanovic carried on with consistently good performances and played a big part in Chelsea winning the title.

Terry and Cole at Chelsea looked like being contenders but both finished the season in fine form. Ferdinand was poor at United but has been injured most of the season. Lescott must have been relieved when injury cut short his season at Manchester City and stopped him from being voted the biggest waste of money ever.

Clearly the ‘Not Hot defender’ is likely to come from one of the teams who have conceded a lot of goals at the bottom of the table. Wigan were one of the least impressive defences and you have to hand it to Gary Caldwell for the fact that he has managed to convince someone that he is a defender worthy of playing in the Premier League.

I’m afraid I am going to have to pay another visit to Turf Moor for this award. Clarke Carlisle is a clever man, a decent bloke and a decent footballer. He used to play for my team Watford, and I have always rated him. However, under the intense pressure that he found himself under in the Burnley back four and the intense media scrutiny that Premier League players face, we witnessed Carlisle have the footballing equivalent of a nervous breakdown.

There are a few contenders for this award. Darren Fletcher has had a fine season for United and Cesc Fabregas has once again held together the Arsenal attempt on the title. Huddlestone, Palacios and Modric have been superb for Tottenham and James Milner has finally fulfilled his potential at Aston Villa.

Danny Murphy at Fulham and Scott Parker at West Ham are amongst many others worthy of a mention, but for me there can only be one winner.

To score twenty-two league goals from midfield at the age of thirty-one is a remarkable achievement. To score double figures in the Premier League from midfield for seven seasons in a row is a remarkable achievement. To play thirty-five or more Premier League games in eight of the past nine seasons is a remarkable achievement. I just hope he can add ’an excellent world cup’ to his list of achievements. Frank Lampard, I salute you.

There have been some average midfield players in the top flight this season and some that can only dream of being average, but this award can only go to one man. Hull City captain George Boateng wins this award by a country mile.

The thirty-four year old Dutch midfielder didn’t play too badly all season, at least no worse than most of his team-mates, but he made two massive mistakes. Firstly, he got himself sent-off in the first half of a crucial game against Arsenal with a ridiculous tackle and possibly cost his side points that may have kept them up.

Then, after they were relegated, rather than looking at himself or the other players, he decided to publicly blame former manager Phil Brown, the man who had taken them to the Premier League and made Boateng captain, for the side’s demise. Shame on you Boateng.

Darren Bent had a remarkable season at Sunderland scoring goals for fun in a pretty poor side. He is worthy of a mention and the fact that he might get overlooked for England and be replaced by Emile Heskey, a man who hasn’t scored as many goals in his career than Bent has this season, is scandalous.

Wayne Rooney has come into his own at United following the departure of Cristiano Ronaldo and playing as a striker he has shown that he is England’s best by a very long way indeed.

Bobby Zamora has had a great season for Fulham and can consider himself a little unlucky not to be considered by England.

Above all of these excellent strikers however is Dimitar Berbatov…only joking!! No, the ‘Hot striker’ is without doubt, Didier Drogba. At his best he is nothing short of unplayable and he has been at his best quite often this season. He was the winner of the golden boot and he has actually made people who used to hate him have to grudgingly admit that he is really quite good.

The laziness of Dimitar Berbatov together with the finishing prowess of Nicklas Bendtner would certainly make an interesting striker! David Ngog might turn out to be a top player but he certainly isn’t one yet.

There are a few strikers who will be disappointed with their goal-scoring return this season and Emile Heskey who is just pleased if he manages to get one.

The man who stands out for me however is Hull City’s Jozy Altidore. The young American striker with nineteen international caps and eight goals to his name came into the Hull side and looked lively for a couple of games.

Twenty-eight games later and the red card he received for a non-sensical head-butt on Alan Hutton in a crucial game against Sunderland meant that at one, he had been sent-off as many times as he had found the net.

It is difficult to look beyond Chelsea as they won the league, won six out of six against the others of the so called big four and scored over one hundred goals.

Other teams that definitely deserve a mention are Tottenham, for achieving the unlikely and qualifying for the Champions League, Birmingham, for defying logic and finishing in the top half, Stoke, for another mid-table finish and Fulham for a mid-table finish alongside their European adventure.

All of those teams have done better than I expected, I don’t think any other teams have done that as I expected them to be where they are or better.

Whilst all of the teams I have mentioned deserve great credit, the award has to go to Chelsea who were worthy winners and played some great football along the way.

It would be easy to give this to Portsmouth because they finished bottom and were pretty poor all season. I’m not going to because they have had such a torrid time behind the scenes that not many teams could have coped with what was going on.

The other relegated teams were awful as well but did anyone seriously expect anything else from Hull and Burnley?

West Ham under-achieved with the squad of players they have and Wigan were, at times, the worst side in the league. Sunderland fell away after a promising start and Everton finished well after a disastrous start.

The only team that I think has under-achieved more than any of those I have mentioned is Liverpool. A seventh place finish after eleven defeats is simply not good enough for a team that were many people’s favourites before the start of the season. For me, Liverpool are the ‘Not Hot team’.