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

Hot team
I suspect that this might be the only time this season that I say this, but the ‘Hot team’ just has to be Blackpool. They were magnificent. They couldn’t have dreamt of a better start and they deserve to bask in the glory of their 4-0 win however short lived that glory might prove to be.

Not Hot team
It is difficult to imagine a worse Premier League performance than the one Wigan produced on Saturday. They were terrible defensively and going forward. From the keeper through to the striker they were all bad. The really bad news for them is that their next two games are against Chelsea and Tottenham who put eight and nine past them last season respectively!

Hot keeper
Fulham’s young keeper David Stockdale stepped into the shoes of Mark Schwartzer with aplomb. He played a key part in earning Mark Hughes a point in his first game away at Bolton.

However, the star keeper this weekend was the man who will surely be England’s number one for many years to come. Joe Hart was given the Manchester City goalkeeper’s jersey ahead of the excellent Shay Given and then showed us all exactly why in a great performance in the 0-0 draw at Tottenham.

Not Hot keeper
There are a few possibilities here. Chris Kirkland had a bit of a nightmare for Wigan in their humiliation at home to Blackpool. He was at fault for at least two of the four goals and won’t look back on the game with any pleasure at all. Despite that, Chris Kirkland is an excellent keeper who will bounce back from that and show us how good he is. He’ll certainly get plenty of practice!

Second possibility is Everton’s Tim Howard. He made a horrible error to hand Blackburn their victory. That was a rare mistake by a good consistent keeper. Talking of rare mistakes, how about the howler by Pepe Reine to hand Arsenal a point?

The other possibility is West Brom keeper Scott Carson. He too had a nightmare and looked totally out of his depth as his side surrendered to a rampant Chelsea. When you need your keeper to be on top form it must be distressing to turn round and see Scott Carson between the posts. I blame Steve McClaren. In selecting the then very promising keeper for that game against Croatia he put his career into a decline that shows no sign of being reversed.

Hot defender
He may have had a poor season last time out and he may have been a very strange choice for the World Cup but Liverpool’s Jamie Carragher showed in the second half against Arsenal yesterday why he is such a favourite with the fans.

With Arsenal pouring forward against ten-man Liverpool looking for the equaliser, Carragher put his body on the line for his club. He was excellent.

Not Hot defender
A while ago one of the newspapers rather unkindly called Titus Bramble, Titus Shambles. He was so prone to making silly mistakes that it was an apt, if rather cruel, nickname. As a former Newcastle man he will have to produce some excellent performances to win over his new Sunderland supporters who will need a lot of convincing that Steve Bruce hasn’t gone completely mad by paying money to bring him to the club.

Unfortunately in his first game, with his side 2-0 up but down to ten men he had a chance to cushion a simple header back to his keeper. He messed it up, gave away a corner, they conceded a goal and shortly afterwards two points were lost. Not a great start.

Hot midfielder
Where has Martin O’Neill been hiding young English midfielder Marc Albrighton? Given his chance by Kevin MacDonald following O’Neill’s departure the young wide player totally destroyed an abject West Ham side. They simply couldn’t cope with his direct running and quick, clever feet.

This young man, who has one England under twenty-one cap, is certainly one to watch.

Not Hot midfielder
Lee Cattermole is still an exciting prospect. He was called up for England and Steve Bruce has made him his captain at Sunderland. He is an all action midfield player who can be inspirational, but also likes a tackle a little too much.

He cost his side two points on Saturday by getting stupidly sent-off. His first yellow card was for a relatively harmless, but pointless, piece of holding. After getting that somewhat soft yellow card only a fool would then put in a nasty and pointless tackle from behind a while later.

If Cattermole is going to make it to the very top then we must hope that his brain can catch up with his undoubted talent.

Hot striker
He was the Premier League’s top marksman last season and we all expected him to have an outstanding World Cup. Unfortunately for Chelsea’s Didier Drogba he broke his arm in a warm-up game and then playing when he probably shouldn’t have been, he did absolutely nothing in the tournament. He has then had a quiet pre-season and we all wondered if we may have seen the best of the man who is well the wrong side of thirty.

A hat-trick on the opening day, albeit against a pretty poor West Brom side, suggests that we might just get one more top season out of the Ivory Coast hit-man.

It would be wrong not to give Blackpool’s Marlon Harewood an honourable mention as well.

Not Hot striker
Roberto Martinez paid an awful lot of money to bring Argentine striker Mauro Boselli to Wigan. The twenty-five year old had a decent scoring record at Estudiantes and has earned one international cap as well. It was his first game on Saturday and it would be totally wrong to judge him on that one performance, but he was pretty terrible.

Boselli will have to produce an awful lot more than he did against Blackpool unless he is keen to earn the tag, ‘worst signing of the season’.