Premier League HOT or NOT

What’s sexy, and not very sexy, in football this week…

HOT

Jack Butland
Scott Carson. Frank Fielding. Scott Loach. Joe Lewis. What these names have in common is that they were all, at some point or another, called up to the England squad and hailed as the national side’s next superstar goalkeeper. In each case, the prediction turned out to be only one-third correct (the goalkeeper part). But the latest name on that not-very auspicious list, Jack Butland, looks like he may be the real deal. The Stoke City shot-stopper single-handedly earned the Potters a point at Newcastle with a string of fine saves. The 22-year-old has made the most saves of any goalkeeper in the Premier League this season on 46 – enough to keep Joe Hart on his toes ahead of Euro 2016. Meanwhile, Frank Fielding is at Bristol City, Scott Loach is at Notts County, Joe Lewis is on loan at Fulham and Scott Carson is at Barcelona (one of those is a lie).

Odion Ighalo
You have to feel sorry for Chinese second division outfit Hebei China Fortune, whose £10m offer for Odion Ighalo was accepted by Watford in July, only for the Nigerian striker to reject the move. Ighalo’s two goals for the Hornets against West Ham took his total to the season to seven, making him Watford’s all-time leading Premier League goalscorer in the space of just three months. If he’s that prolific in the “world’s greatest league”, he would probably have bagged about 200 goals in China’s second tier by now. On the bright side for Hebei China Fortune, they still managed to finish second in the league and secure promotion to the top flight. Maybe they’ll bid £20m for Ighalo next week.

Arouna Kone
If you’d asked an Everton fan about Arouna Kone a few months ago, they would have told you his £5m move from Wigan Athletic in 2013 was an unmitigated disaster. Suffering a season-ending knee injury after just six scoreless appearances for the club, the Ivorian striker’s recovery was slow and painful. He scored just once in his first two seasons at Goodison Park and, at 31, looked every bit an expensive, unfortunate mistake. But Roberto Martinez, who also managed Kone at Wigan, kept faith with the striker when others might not have, and his hat-trick against Sunderland made it five goals in 11 league games this season. Kone is reborn, Martinez is vindicated.

NOT

Andy Carroll
From zero to hero to zero. It’s been an interesting couple of weeks for Andy Carroll, who came back from the dead to score West Ham’s winning goal against Chelsea last Saturday, then followed it up this weekend with one of Premier League’s all-time great moments of comedy defending. Carroll’s initial attempt to clear the ball against Watford by kicking up in the air as hard as he possibly could, and entirely failing to make contact, was amusing enough. But his follow-up tactic – trying to perform a Cruyff turn two yards from his own goal – must have had celebrity Hornet Elton John laughing his head clean off its shoulders. On a more positive note for the Hammers, at least Carroll didn’t get injured.

Sam Allardyce
There are two things that Sunderland’s new manager always delivers: Premier League safety and defensive solidity. But that he was before he became Sunderland’s new manager. “I gave them more protection today to look after themselves defensively,” said Sam Allardyce after watching his team concede six goals against Everton, the boss’s cautious 3-5-2 formation having backfired somewhat. Given that the negative approach employed at Goodison Park didn’t work, perhaps Big Sam will decide to go gung-ho for the rest of the season, Kevin Keegan style. And he might also start wearing a bikini on the touchline.

Kevin MacDonald
The last time Aston Villa’s coach became caretaker manager at Villa Park, following Martin O’Neill’s resignation in 2010, he declared that he wanted the job full-time – although a 6-0 loss at Newcastle put a spanner in that particular ambition. This time, the Scotsman didn’t bother pretending he was the next Jose Mourinho Pep Guardiola. He just sat in the dugout at White Hart Lane and waited for Tottenham to complete Villa’s seventh successive Premier League defeat. MacDonald did make one little statement of defiance though, by opting not to select any of Villa’s summer recruits apart from the Tim Sherwood-endorsed Joleon Lescott. It would have been a more effective statement if Villa had won though.

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