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

Who's Hot and Who's Not

Bolton, Arsenal, Birmingham, Manchester United and Tottenham all picked up three points, but the winners of the award this week have to be United. They bounced back from defeat at Wolves to pick up an absolutely crucial win. They may not have been great, but those three points may have won them the league.

Everton, Wolves, Stoke, Manchester City and Sunderland all failed to pick up a point. Wolves hardly had a kick at Arsenal and Sunderland weren’t great against Tottenham. Manchester City probably deserved a point at Old Trafford and Stoke lost to a goal deep in stoppage time. The worst team were Everton. They were poor at Bolton and their manager David Moyes cut a sorry figure on the touchline. The players were arguing and they were devoid of ideas. These are worrying times at Goodison.

He was out of the limelight for a long while after some highly publicised errors, but Paul Robinson has slowly but surely restored his reputation since moving to Blackburn. He can’t be far away from being England’s best keeper again, so if you’re passing the time until he gets between the posts with some Online poker or Champion’s League action, don’t worry – it won’t be long if he’s lucky.

Sunderland’s Craig Gordon had a horror show at Stoke last week and would have been keen to put that behind him with a good display against Tottenham on Saturday. Unfortunately for him he carried the jitters from last week into the game with him and looked anything but the fine keeper we all know he can be.

It is rare to select a defender for this award who played on the losing team, but I will make an exception this week. Vincent Kompany was immense in the centre of the Manchester City back four on Saturday and it was clear that it would take a piece of unbelievable individual brilliance to get past him. Unfortunately for him that is what happened, but it didn’t take away from how well he played.

You really could pick any of the eight defenders who played in the 3-3 draw between West Brom and West Ham. The two sides took it in turns to see who could produce the most comical piece of defending. If I have to pick one, I’ll have to go for West Ham’s New Zealander, Winston Reid. He was out of position, slow to close down, weak in the challenge and scored an own goal. Even then, he wasn’t really any worse than any of the others!

The signing of Raul Meireles may well be the only thing that Roy Hodgson will be fondly remembered for at Anfield. The Portuguese midfielder took a while to settle in but he is certainly looking the part now. Yet another goal from him on Saturday will have made him even more popular with the Liverpool faithful.

Aston Villa’s Jean Makoun hasn’t been at the club long and he will not have endeared himself to his manager, team-mates or fans with the ridiculous tackle he made in the 1-1 draw at Blackpool. His side held on for a point in the twenty minutes they had to play without him but he could have cost them dear.

It is probably completely unfair to give the ‘Hot striker’ award to a player who produced just two seconds of brilliance in an entire game, but my goodness those two seconds really were brilliant and worthy of this award. Wayne Rooney is probably the only English player who could have scored that goal.

Whenever I see Victor Anichebe playing for Everton I admire his work rate and determination. Yesterday, in the defeat at Bolton, the television commentators were talking about the fact that he worked really hard and ‘put in a good shift’. Unfortunately, as a striker, the main thing he should be doing is providing a goal threat, and he simply doesn’t do that. I do wonder if he is quite good enough to be a striker at the top level.