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

Hot team
They have had some poor results but my goodness they’ve had some good ones as well. West Brom fans have been used to going up and down between the Premier League and the Championship like a yo-yo over the past few season but they may just have to get used to life in the top flight. They play some good stuff and they’ve got goals in them. They were a class apart from Newcastle yesterday. (See ‘Not Hot team’.)

Not Hot team
They have been up and down all season but Newcastle were really, really down yesterday at West Brom. They looked disorganised and out of their depth. Even Andy Carroll had a poor day at the office. We have seen that on their day Newcastle are more than capable of being a match for anyone in this league but yesterday they looked like the Newcastle that got relegated with a whimper a couple of seasons ago.

Hot keeper
There were some excellent goalkeeping performances this week. Ben Foster again made some good saves for Birmingham and Jussi Jaaskelainen was excellent for Bolton at Manchester City. Stoke keeper Asmir Begovic also deserves a mention for a really good second half display at Wigan.

None of those keepers actually ended up on the winning side so I am going to look elsewhere. Normally, when a team win 3-0 their keeper will have largely been a spectator. That wasn’t the case at Blackburn where Paul Robinson was man of the match for a string of fine saves. He is the ‘Hot keeper’.

Not Hot keeper
He has been consistently good for a while but Tim Howard is starting to look a little shaky. There were a couple of questionnable pieces of keeping by the Everton man at Chelsea on Saturday and how he wasn’t sent off for his foul on Anelka, only the referee knows.

Hot defender
Blackburn Rovers’ thirty-three year old centre-back Ryan Nelson is something of an unsung hero at the club. The New Zealnder is in his seventh season with the club and he has rarely let them down. He may not be a tremendously gifted footballer but what he does, he does well. He popped up with a rare goal, only his seventh in nearly two hundred appearances, on Saturday and helped his side keep a clean sheet (with the help of Paul Robinson, see ‘hot keeper’.) I thought I should give some recognition to this loyal and effective player.

Not Hot defender
Everton’s Phil Neville has given great service over the years but his horrendous pass back at Chelsea on Saturday should have cost his team the game. He should be grateful to the referee for inexplicably not sending off Tim Howard and to his team-mates for showing the spirit and ability to come back from a goal down.

It isn’t often that Neville lets his team down but he did on Saturday.

Hot midfielder
He has really come into his own this season and shown what a class act he is. Maybe Arsenal’s Samir Nasri secretely enjoys it when Cesc Fabregas can’t play, so that he can take on a little more responsibility.

Once again on Saturday against Fulham he took centre stage and didn’t disappoint. Nasri’s first goal was exceptional. His second was simply sublime.

Not Hot midfielder
John Obi Mikel has been a fixture in a very successful Chelsea team. He is a tidy player who rarely gives the ball away. Different Chelsea managers have seen fit to include him in their plans and they have all been pretty good judges. It is against that background that I ask the following questions. Has anyone ever seen him hit a really telling pass? Has anyone ever seen him take a game by the scruff of the neck and make things happen? Has anyone ever seen him score a goal?

Hot striker
Some strikers have a knack of scoring goals. That sounds like a really obvious statement but when you think of Emile Heskey, you realise it isn’t always the case! One striker who has made a great impression in his short time in the Premier League is West Brom’s twenty-nine year old Nigerian/Russian hit man Peter Odemwingie. Another two goals from him yesterday in West Brom’s comprehensive win over Newcastle.

Not Hot striker
He is a cult hero wherever he has played. He scores goals and gives 110% every time he goes onto the pitch. Once again on Saturday Carlos Tevez scored the winning goal for his Manchester City team.

Surely I’ve made a mistake naming Tevez as the ‘Not Hot striker’? No I haven’t. His reaction to being substituted just before the end of the game was childish, selfish and embarrassing. He is meant to be the captain of the side. There is no place for that sort of spoilt, pathetic tantrum.