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Premier League HOT or NOT: Carroll and Rooney silence the doubters, Guardiola has a meltdown

Middlesbrough v West Ham United - Premier League
Middlesbrough v West Ham United - Premier League

HOT

Carrolls
Andy and Tom are not related, but what they have had in common in recent years is a tendency to disappoint people. Even in this run-up to this weekend’s matches, the same-surnamed pair faced a certain amount of ridicule – Andy for allegedly suffering whiplash while scoring his famous overhead kick against Crystal Palace, and Tom for commanding a £9m transfer fee despite not ever having done much. But both responded in style. Andy’s brace in West Ham’s 3-1 at Middlesbrough kept him on course to manage more goals than injuries this season, while Tom helped inspire Swansea to a scarcely believable 3-2 win at Liverpool – including his contender for Cross of the Season as he set up Fernando Llorente for the Swans’ second. And if there is no such thing as Cross of the Season, then there should be.

Wayne Rooney
Even if it wasn’t the goal that broke the Manchester United scoring record, Rooney’s injury-time free-kick against Stoke would have been a climactic masterpiece. Struck from an almost impossible angle, hit with unspeakable venom and flying straight into the top corner, it was probably the best set-piece of Rooney’s entire life. As well as earning United an important point that preserves their 17-match unbeaten record, that goal also served as an emphatic middle finger to all those who have crudely – sometimes cruelly- dismissed the England captain as a spent footballing force. And best of all, he even managed to avoid getting drunk in public celebrating his feat.

British spunk
Not for the first time, British footballers have proved they are harder than their fancy Dan foreign counterparts who are always falling over and cheating. First we had West Brom’s grizzled captain Darren Fletcher barely batting an eyelid despite being punched full in the face by Sunderland maniac Papy Djilobodji. Then we had the gallant Raheem Sterling, point-blank refusing to go to ground despite being shoved in the back – in the penalty area, of all places – by Tottenham’s Kyle Walker. As anyone from Alan Shearer to Nigel Farage will tell you, if those players had been foreign they would have been rolling around on the floor in agony and their assailants would have probably been red carded. Which once again begs the question, wouldn’t we all be better off if we were a bit more European?

Rod Stewart
It’s not strictly the Premier League – in fact it’s not even the Scottish Premier League – but that’s not important. Rod Stewart drawing the home teams for the Scottish Cup fifth round while smashed off his nut was the highlight of the weekend’s football, and of the weekend’s TV, and of 2017 so far.

NOT

Pep Guardiola
The Manchester City manager had a reputation as something of a smooth customer before he glided across the Channel to try his hand in the Premier League. But it turns out anyone can look debonair when they’re winning every week at Barcelona and Bayern Munich, and in fact Pep is just as loony as the rest of them. Or perhaps loonier. The Spaniard’s enraged rant at a “prestigious” BBC interviewer who dared to ask him a question about the aforementioned Sterling penalty shout while he was watching it on a TV screen hinted at a man who is struggling to come to terms with being second best (or, more specifically, fifth best). Less tiki-taka, more Neil Warnock.

Christian Kabasele
Saturday should have been a good day for the Watford defender, whose first-half header against Bournemouth looked to have put the Hornets on course for a much-needed league victory after seven games without one. But with eight minutes remaining, Kabasele did possibly the most inadvisable thing a defender could ever do. He voluntarily fell flat onto the ground midway through an opposition attack, just outside his own penalty area, leaving an area of space that was immediately exposed by the Cherries and allowed Benik Afobe to slot home an equaliser. Injured or not, you will see few more ridiculous things on a football pitch than Kabasele’s collapse.

Sam Allardyce
“I’ve been here before. If the players believe as much as I do, we’ll get out of it,” said Crystal Palace’s never-been-relegated manager with a cheeky smile after overseeing a dismal home defeat by Everton that left his side languishing in the bottom three and still without a win since his much-heralded arrival at Selhurst Park. So is this the infectious positivity of a man destined to lead his troops to safety once again, or the dangerous complacency of a man who thinks he can’t be relegated simply because he never has been before? A question to ponder over a pint of wine one evening, perhaps.

@darlingkevin