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

Who's Hot and Who's Not

There were many good performances this week and Liverpool’s win at Chelsea and Newcastle’s comeback against Arsenal would both have won this award most weeks. However, for the bottom side in the league to beat the league leaders and end their season long unbeaten run, there can be no other winner. Wolves were excellent and deserved their win.

No fight, no passion, no desire, no quality, no cohesion, no direction and no chance of staying up. West Ham were very poor indeed against a not great Birmingham side.

On a weekend when so many goals were scored it is hard to find a keeper who covered himself in glory. The man I am going for is Manchester City stopper Joe Hart. He has been a little out of sorts recently but looked back to his best on Saturday in their 3-0 win on Saturday.

The ridiculous sacking of Roberto Di Matteo is shown by the fact that West Brom had more attempts on goal than City and nine of them were on target. Joe Hart did well to keep a clean sheet.

Just a couple of years ago Chelsea keeper Petr Cech had a justifiable claim to be the best keeper in the world. After his horrible injury his form understandably suffered, but of late, it looked as though he was getting back somewhere close to his best.

On Sunday against Liverpool he looked hesitant and shaky. He didn’t command his area at all and he has to take the blame for the goal. That goal may very well have ruled Chelsea out of winning the league this year.

Over the years I have not always been Jamie Carragher’s biggest fan. I haven’t always been convinced that he was quite as good as certain people have suggested. I have to put that to one side now and say that he was magnificent in Liverpool’s win at Chelsea yesterday.

Carragher had less than a week’s training after coming back from injury, yet he didn’t give Drogba or his old mate Torres a kick of the ball. He was truly exceptional.

Fulham’s John Pantsil netted his third own goal of the season at Aston Villa on Saturday. That made it four own goals in all in a Fulham shirt and he has never scored for them at the right end.

Whilst his own goal a couple of weeks ago had a large comedic element to it, the one on Saturday was a well placed cushioned header, back across the goal, giving Schwartzer no chance.

Newcastle midfielder Cheik Tiote has been brilliant for them this season. Once again on Saturday he was the best player on the pitch in the second half and it was truly fitting that the Ivorian midfielder scored the great goal that completed Newcastle’s remarkable recovery.

What on earth was Arsenal’s Abou Diaby thinking of? Don’t get me wrong, we’ve all fancied grabbing Joey Barton by the scruff of the neck and throwing him to the floor at one time or another, but on this very rare occasion Barton had done absolutely nothing wrong.

The tackle Barton put in on Diaby was hard but fair. The Arsenal midfielder’s reaction was plain stupid. His dismissal probably played a huge part in Arsenal losing a four goal lead, two points and, who knows, possibly the title at the end of the season. He is definitely the ‘Not Hot’ midfielder.

If he hadn’t been so terribly plagued by injury over the last few years Everton’s Louis Saha might have been one of the best strikers the Premier League has seen. On Saturday he was unplayable and bagged four goals against an admittedly wide open Blackpool.

If Saha stays fit, Everton will climb up the table and everything at Goodison will look far more rosy.

This is a bit harsh on Chelsea’s fifty million pound man, but Fernando Torres looked exactly the same in a Chelsea shirt yesterday as he has looked in a Liverpool shirt all season. A shadow of the striker he used to be.