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

Who's Hot and Who's Not?

Manchester United, Chelsea, Everton and Bolton all had fine wins but this award has to go to Wigan. They have not had a great season and they have won the ‘Not Hot’ team more than once. Who can forget their disaster at White Hart Lane?

Having said that they have had some great days, beating Chelsea and Liverpool for example. It certainly didn’t look like being another great day when they found themselves 2-0 down at home to Arsenal with just ten minutes remaining. For a team struggling at the wrong end of the table to show the spirit and fight to come back to win 3-2 was quite remarkable.

It has been nice for the Burnley fans to have a season in the top flight but the simple fact is that the team are just not quite good enough. Their win at Hull last week proved to be a false dawn as they once again defended terribly and went in 2-0 down at the break. If you can’t defend, you’ve got no chance at the highest level.

I know he has some mad moments and I know you never feel entirely comfortable with him in the number one shirt but David James is most definitely still England’s best goalkeeper.

Lucasz Fabianski is highly rated by Arsene Wenger who believes he can go on to great things. He had an absolute nightmare earlier in the season and yesterday he dropped the ball on Titus Bramble’s head to gift Wigan an unlikely equaliser. I think his fan club is rapidly diminishing to the point where Arsene might just be the only member.

Tottenham’s Michael Dawson might be doing enough at the moment to earn himself a trip to South Africa in June. He has been excellent lately and he was totally dominant against Chelsea on saturday. In fact, if you compared Dawson to John Terry, which one looked like an England center-back?

I have never been a John Terry fan and I was pleased when he was relieved of the England captaincy. I am not daft enough not to recognise his talent as a leader and a defender, but I just can’t warm to the man.

Sometimes he looks as though he feels above the rules of the game and he seems to argue with every decision that goes against his team or more particularly him. He struts around the pitch with a snarling and intimidating manner and his fist clenching passion all gets a bit much sometimes.

He was poor on saturday and got himself sent off with two silly and unnecessary tackles.

Paul Scholes deserves a special mention for turning back the years and Gareth Bale deserves a mention because he was absolutely outstanding again. However, I’m giving the award to someone at the other end of the table.

It hasn’t been a great season for Bolton or for their left sided midfielder Matt Taylor. Their win at Stoke courtesy of a double strike by Taylor in the final five minutes was a crucial and impressive performance.

Taylor has scored some spectacular goals in his career and many that were considerably more impressive than the two he got on saturday. I doubt whether any of them have been so important.

Papa Bouba Diop used to be a frightening figure when he played for Fulham. Not only was he an awesome physical presence, he was also a really good player with a tenacious tackle, a wicked shot and an eye for a pass. Watching him for Portsmouth yesterday was quite sad. He isn’t half of the player he used to be.

It is unlikely that Darren Bent will be going to the world cup. He may wonder what he has to do to force his way into the reckoning. He has scored goals wherever he has been, even at Tottenham, where his career seemed to stand still. He has continued scoring regularly in a pretty poor Sunderland team this season and there is no doubt that he is one of England’s top strikers.

This week I’m going to share out this dubious honour. Bobby Zamora of Fulham and Kevin Doyle of Wolves have both had really good seasons. They will both be relatively pleased with the point each of their teams picked up in their game at Craven Cottage on Saturday.

Unbelievably, in that game, a tame header by defender Christophe Berra was the only attampt on target in the entire ninety minutes. As the leaders of two strike forces who failed to hit the target in a whole game, they are worthy winners of the award.