Premier League HOT or NOT
What’s sexy, and what’s unsexy, in football this week…
HOT
Christian Fuchs
Jamie Vardy’s having a party, bring your vodka and don’t forget to invite Christian Fuchs. Vardy is the man of the moment, but Leicester’s record-busting striker has his 29-year-old Austrian team-mate to thank for providing a worldy of an assist in the top-of-the-table clash against Manchester United. Picking up the ball on the edge of his own area, Fuchs sprinted gracefully down the right wing before majestically slide-ruling the ball to the edge of the the opposition’s box, where Vardy picked it up and rammed home for the 12th consecutive Premier League game. If Fuchs keeps supplying assists like that, Vardy will never stop scoring. (A brief assessment of the full-back’s attacking career so far indicates that he won’t.)
Adam Smith
Everton manager Roberto Martinez can’t be too angry with his defenders for failing to close down Bournemouth’s second-choice right-back with 10 minutes remaining of the Toffees’ visit to Dean Court. The Cherries defender had scored just four goals in his entire professional career - twice for Milton Keynes Dons in League One, once for Millwall and once for the Cherries five seasons ago - and Everton were cruising to a 2-0 victory, so it didn’t look like a particularly dangerous scenario. But when Smith wrapped the outside of his boot around the ball and leathered it into the top corner with a 25-yard strike whose sweetness will not be bettered anywhere this season, it triggered the most thrillingly mad climax to a Premier League match in recent memory, as the Cherries’ West Ham reject Junior Stanislas defied John Motson’s pronunciation of his name (“Stanislaus”, apparently) to earn a 3-3 draw with two injury-time goals.
Alan Pardew
“Whatever I say about Newcastle it’s contrived as being smug,” complained Alan Pardew after his Crystal Palace side hammered the club whose fans forced him out just under a year ago. It was a slightly unfair comment, given that almost anything Pardew says can be contrived as smug due to his unavoidably smug manner. And this comment was no exception, despite the manager’s valiant attempt to use the least smug expression in his repertoire when discussing the Eagles’ 5-1 win against the Magpies. The fact is, he had every right to be pleased with himself as his current team looked light years ahead of his former one in terms of ability and effort. “There are people I love in that (Newcastle) dressing room,” Pardew said, and it was easy to see why after the way they laid back and let Palace ruin them.
NOT
Diego Costa
Various players/managers/club doctors have been scapegoated as the cause of Chelsea’s problems so far this season, and now it’s Diego Costa’s turn. After choosing to defend the Brazilian Spanish striker when he slapped people earlier in the season, Jose Mourinho has lost patience with Costa over his lack of goals. And it appeared that Costa had also lost patience with Mourinho when he realised he would be an unused substitute in the Blues’ bore draw at Tottenham, responding by hurling his bib at the Chelsea manager (although not after struggling to actually remove the garment, a bit like Mario Balotelli in reverse). The most embarrassing part for Costa was that fellow substitute John Mikel Obi could be seen openly laughing at his team-mate’s strop. A new low in anyone’s career.
Alan Hutton
When you’re in as deep and gloopy a pickle as Aston Villa are right now, you need a bit of good fortune - and they got it when the blatantly offside Micah Richards equalised in their crucial home match against Watford. Unfortunately for Remi Garde’s men, Scottish full-back Hutton was not feeling lucky. After first haplessly restoring the Hornets’ lead with a own goal, he then conceded possession twice in quick succession on the edge of his own penalty area to allow childhood Birmingham fan Troy Deeney to score Watford’s third. The sight of Deeney living out every Bluenose’s fantasy by celebrating wildly in front of the Holte End was the starkest sign yet that Villa’s season is doomed.
Arsene Wenger
Arsenal have been trying their best to reach the top of the table in recent weeks, but once again they fell just short and currently lie in second place - behind Bournemouth. We are of course referring to the Physio Room injury league table, where the Gunners’ 10 crocks leave them one place behind the Cherries, who have 11. The addition of Alexis Sanchez, Laurent Koscielny and Santi Cazolra to Arsenal’s list courtesy of just one match against Norwich was impressive even by the Gunners’ recent standards. But you have to feel slightly sorry for Wenger when the club’s livid fans blame him for the injury crisis, and their squad’s inability to cope with it, as if it’s him who has been chasing them around the pitch kicking them. But as ever at the Emirates, hope springs eternal: just a couple more hamstring strains and they could topple Bournemouth and be top by Christmas.
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