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

Hot team
Let’s look at this weekend’s winners. Arsenal, West Ham, West Brom, Tottenham and Wolves all had really good and important wins. Any one of them could stake a claim for this award. However, any team that wins a Premier League game 7-1 has to be the ‘Hot team’ of that week.

Whichever way you look at it Manchester United were fantastic against an admittedly poor Blackburn side. At times their football was breathtaking. If this game signals a return to form for United then as I said the other day, everyone else had better watch out.

Not Hot team
For every winner there has to be a loser. Villa, Everton and Sunderland will have been bitterly disappointed by their performances and results. Wigan were absolutely terrible at West Ham but they are used to that.

Just as any team winning 7-1 have to be the ‘Hot team’, the losers have to be the ‘Not Hot team’. Blackburn are worthy recipients of this week’s award.

Hot keeper
West Ham keeper Robert Green has bounced back from his World Cup disaster pretty well. He is still prone to making an absolute howler from time to time but he is also capable of world class saves.

OK, I’m pretty sure I would have saved that penalty on Saturday, but his general performance in the game gave an air of confidence to the West Ham defence and gave the team the platform to pick up a crucial three points.

Not Hot keeper
Whilst he didn’t do anything particularly wrong, any keeper who has to pick the ball out of the back of his net seven times has to take a look at himself. It may be unfair but Paul Robinson gets this one.

Hot defender
To come in for your first game of the season at the age of thirty-six and be asked to deal with Didier Drogba would be a tough call for almost anyone. Not for Sol Campbell it wasn’t.

Not Hot defender
Alex put himself up for the award by giving Newcastle a goal and then being tormented by Andy Carroll for forty-five minutes, but he recovered well.

The Blackburn back five are also all worthy candidates. It is hard to single one out for the award but the back pass from Pascal Chimbonda to hand United their third goal just gives him the edge.

Hot midfielder
It has taken me a while to warm to Luca Modric at Tottenham but I can now see what everyone else has been going on about. The little Croatian midfielder absolutely oozes class. He was behind everything that Tottenham did well yesterday. It might be Gareth Bale getting all the deserved headlines, but this man is equally crucial to Tottenham’s chances of success.

Not Hot midfielder
This is a little harsh because he didn’t play too badly in the second half and he ended up on the winning side, but the display of Wilson Palacios for Tottenham in the first half against Liverpool yesterday was right up there with the worst displays I have ever seen at Premier League level.

The ironic cheers from Tottenham fans when he completed his first successful pass to another Tottenham player after about half an hour told the whole story.

Hot striker
The enigma that is Dimitar Berbatov continues to amze and frustrate in equal measures. For the last few weeks he has looked absolutely hopeless. On Saturday he was sublime, brilliant and unplayable. To score five goals in any game is remarkable. At this level it is close to astonishing. One of his goals saw him play three one-twos over an eighty yard distance and smash the ball home. You don’t get better than that.

Not Hot striker
There is still something fundamental missing from the game of Fernando Torres. He looks fit and ready to play but all is not well. Twice he was clean through yesterday and twice Bassong got back to him and got in a tackle. At his best, that would have been two goals and with all due respect to Bassong, he wouldn’t have got anywhere near him.