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Premier League HOT or NOT: Arter, Bolasie, Obiang, Smalling, Moyes, Anichebe

What’s sexy, and what isn’t, in football this week…

HOT

Harry Arter
Bournemouth’s classy midfielder continues to give everyone reasons to love him, the latest being his insistence that Tottenham’s Moussa Sissoko should not get banned even though he quite clearly elbowed him in the face on purpose during the sides’ 0-0 draw at Dean Court. “He said it was an accident so I believe him,” said the endearingly trusting Arter following another elegant display in the Cherries midfield. While the likes of Diego Costa and Wayne Rooney vie for the title of Premier League’s most unpopular man, it’s looking like a one-horse race for the ‘most popular’ title. Admittedly, Arter doesn’t have much competition for this accolade.

Yannick Bolasie
Everton striker Romelu Lukaku has scored nine goals in his last eight games and he probably fancied himself for another when he was bursting through on goal against Burnley on Saturday. So the beefy Belgian must have been slightly taken aback when his team-mate Yannick Bolasie, who hasn’t scored any goals this season, literally pushed him out of the way so that he could burst through on goal instead. It was a ridiculous, some would say reckless, display of self-confidence from the winger. But he emphatically justified it by ramming home his first Toffees goal. For this maverick act, and especially for risking a beating from Lukaku if he failed to find the net, Bolasie did not deserve to be on the losing side.


Pedro Obiang
After West Ham shipped 14 goals in four league games, their under-pressure manager Slaven Bilic decided it might be time to deploy a dedicated defensive midfielder. Enter Obiang, a 24-year-old Spaniard who Bilic has consistently overlooked since his arrival from Sampdoria a year ago - and even tried to replace with Harvard Nordveit this summer. The Hammers have conceded just once in three games since the impressive Obiang was restored to the starting line-up, making Bilic’s previous neglect of him all the more perplexing. An unsung hero in the Hammers midfield he may continue to be, but Obiang may just have saved the Bilic his job.

NOT

Chris Smalling
The Manchester United centre-back spent a lot of time and effort rebranding himself from “hapless” to “solid” over the past couple of years, so it would be a shame if he undid all that hard work in 90 minutes. But it might be too late to save him now. Horribly exposed for all four of Chelsea’s goals in United’s humiliation at Stamford Bridge, Jose Mourinho did well to restrain himself from exclaiming in his post-match interview, “This is all Chris Smalling’s fault, not mine!”. This wouldn’t have been true anyway, as Smalling was hung out to dry by his defence, midfield and goalkeeper for those various goals. But unfortunately he’s always had a scapegoaty kind of look about him.

David Moyes
Well this isn’t going very well is it. Yet to win a league game at his new club, the Sunderland manager should at least have been celebrating a hard-earned point at West Ham following a classic backs-to-the-wall display. But his previously diligent defence switched off at a late corner and Hammers centre-back Winston Reid scored a silly goal, which Moyes angrily claimed was offside when it wasn’t. It’s days like these when Moyesy must wonder if Tony Hibbert put some kind of curse on him the day he left Everton. He might also be regretting re-signing another former Toffees stalwart…

Victor Anichebe
An unused substitute in the Black Cats’ defeat at London Stadium, the obvious thing for the striker to do on Saturday night was go home in silence. But instead, someone thought it might boost club morale if he tweeted. We don’t know who this someone was exactly, but they evidently sent Anichebe some suggested wording which he duly posted wholesale, including the bit that said “can you tweet something like”. Rarely have the cynical PR machinations behind the Premier League been so embarrassingly exposed - and best of all it was for such a completely pointless tweet. Anichebe’s 12.8k followers now face a decision on whether they want to continue getting updates from a combination of a faceless marketing team and a man who doesn’t know how to use the internet.

@darlingkevin