Not just one team in the frame for this award this week. It could go to Manchester United who looked close to their best in the eventual dismantling of West Brom. Arsenal played some lovely stuff in their win over Everton and Hull City continue to shock and amaze as they still sit in the top three.
Despite all of that, the award has to go to a quite irrisistable Chelsea side who won 5-0 at Middlesbrough without seven first choice players. It was as frightening for the other teams at the top and probably across Europe, as it was impressive.
The obvious choice for this award is Middlesbrough, but bad as they were, they did come up against a quite exceptional team.
No, this just has to go to Tottenham. Just when the Spurs fans thought that things had hit rock bottom they manage to plummet new depths. Yesterday at Stoke, they lost to the team second from bottom in the table, gave away two penalties, had two men sent off, one man carried off and continued to play a man in goal who was in obvious agony, presumably due to a total lack of faith in the substitute keeper.
They can’t even say that they are not getting the breaks. Their equalising goal yesterday should have been disallowed for offside.
I would like to say that it just can’t any worse for Tottenham but they proved yesterday that they probably can.
Nine keepers kept clean sheets over the weekend. They all deserve praise. On this occasion I am going to single out Paul Robinson at Blackburn. I have not always been so full of praise for Robinson and he has certainly had a torrid time over the past couple of seasons.
It may just be that he is settling in at Blackburn and beginning to look again like a half decent keeper. He made a couple of smart saves in the draw at Bolton and seems to be growing in confidence. Good for him.
With nine keepers keeping clean sheets the other unfortunate eleven keepers conceded twenty-two goals between them.
Many of the goals were unstoppable and the keepers simply couldn’t be blamed. In fact, I can only recall one really horrible error. As that error cost a goal and he conceded more goals than any other keeper, it is only right that this should go to Ross Turnbull of Middlesbrough.
(Tough life being a keeper. He was the ‘Hot keeper’ last time around.)
With three games ending 0-0 and three other teams keeping a clean sheet, there are many candidates for this award. Most defenders did their job pretty well over the weekend.
I’m going to give this to Hull’s Michael Turner, who not only marshalled his defence to keep a clean sheet against West Ham, but went up and headed the winning goal for his remarkable side to take them back up to third in the table.
I am a big fan of David Wheater. He is a hugely promising centre half for Middlesbrough and thoroughly deserves his place in the England under twenty-one team.
Having said that, he had ‘one of those days’ against Chelsea on Saturday where if it could go wrong for him, it did.
He’ll be doing his best to forget the game, but I’ll give him this award just so that his performance can be remembered by others.
He is England’s forgotten man. After a string of injuries and a run of form that didn’t seem much like international class, Kieran Richardson has been completely discarded from the international set up.
On Saturday for Sunderland in their 0-0 draw at Fulham, Richardson showed touches and glimpses of what he can produce. He hit both posts with one free kick and had another one disallowed for an infringement in the wall. As well as those stunning free kicks, he also ran with the ball with great fluency and gave Fulham problems all game.
Good to see him back near his best.
This award has to go to Valencia of Wigan. He is a fine player who Sir Alex Ferguson admires and rumours suggest may well try to take to Old Trafford.
On Saturday however, he produced a piece of stupidity that probably cost his Wigan side a valuable and memorable win at Anfield. With his side leading 2-1 he was somewhat harshly booked for encroaching at a free-kick. Whilst I have some sympathy for him in that incident, to throw himself into the wild tackle he did just seconds later to earn his second yellow was nothing less that a moment of absolute madness.
Following his sending off, as we know, Liverpool struck twice to win the game 3-2.
A few candidates for this one this week. The much maligned Dirk Kuyt bagging two from his old position as a striker, Wigan’s exceptional Amr Zaki getting a brace at Anfield and Wayne Rooney continuing his wonderful goalscoring run of form.
I think the award this week has to go to Wayne Rooney. Many people believe that he has never quite lived up to the promise he showed as a teenager, but maybe, he is just about to do just that.
If he is, these could be very exciting times for Manchester United and England.
Sorry Jason, I really like you as a striker and you are a real hard working player, not one of the massive superstars who it somehow seems OK to have a go at!
Blackburn defended stoutly at Bolton and all the players and fans can do is ask the strikers to make the most of any limited opportunities that may come their way as the rest of the team battle and scrap in defence.
One golden opportunity landed on the head of Jason Roberts, only six yards from goal, unmarked. He somehow managed to contrive to head the ball wide and Blackburn’s one chance of snatching three points had gone.
It was a bad miss!
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