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Premier League HOT or NOT: Walcott, Son, Austin, Cahill

What’s sexy, and what’s unsexy, in football this week…

HOT

Theo Walcott
It was no surprise when everyone’s favourite winger who thinks he’s a striker was omitted from England’s Euro 2016 squad. After losing his place at Arsenal, he looked every bit a 27-year-old former pace merchant on the slide. But Arsene Wenger evidently didn’t lose faith in that famous potential, even if others had. Walcott has started every game for the Gunners this season, and symbolised their recent rejuvenation with a display full of industry and menace (not to mention an excellent goal) in the 3-0 win against Chelsea. It is just possible this upturn has coincided with Theo finally accepting he’s a winger and not a striker?

Charlie Austin
“They say he has no ligaments in his right knee, who knows?” So went West Ham chairman David Sullivan’s assessment of the risk involved in signing Charles Austin from QPR last year. Well it turns out the striker either does some have knee ligaments, or he doesn’t need them, judging by his classy finish against the Hammers on Sunday that put the Saints 1-0 up (a lead currently guaranteed to secure victory when facing Slaven Bilic’s side). That’s five goals in four games for Austin, who is starting to resemble the player who netted 18 times in the top flight in 2014/15. Meanwhile, none of the strikers Sullivan ended up buying have scored any goals this season.

Son Heung-min
What have we here? A peripheral figure in Tottenham’s title challenge last season, the South Korean has suddenly emerged as Spurs’ main man - and with impeccable timing given that Harry Kane and Dele Alli have yet to find their scoring boots. Son wouldn’t be the first player to be written off in his first Premier League season and then flourish the following year. He scored four league goals last season, a tally he has already matched this campaign - and every strike has been a worldy. Is it a Michael Ricketts-style purple patch or the dawn of a new attacking force? The next few months will provide the answer.

NOT

Gary Cahill
Antonio Conte knows a solid centre-back when he sees one. A rugged, uncompromising, no-nonsense, Italian-style rock you could put your house on and trust your grandmother with. So we wonder what he makes of the ones he’s got at Chelsea. Amid a chaotic year, various events have conspired to ensure that Cahill has clung on to a starting place at the heart of the Blues’ back-line. But his role in Arsenal’s opening goal in the defeat at the Emirates, as he got bullied into making a kamikaze backpass by Alexis Sanchez, would have made even David Luiz blush.

David Marshall
It’s your Premier League debut for Hull City. All you have to do to make yourself an instant hero is save a penalty from James Milner. You dive in exactly the same place as the ball, but the shot goes in anyway. That’s annoying. But fair enough, these things happen. Then Milner gets another penalty - a chance for redemption. As luck would have it, Milner puts the ball in exactly the same place as he did the first time AND you dive the right way again. But do you save it? No. Were either of them unstoppable penalties? No. How is this possible? Not sure.

The West Ham way
As far as Hammers fans were concerned, a slightly leaky defence was a small price to pay for an effervescent attacking style last season, as Slaven Bilic’s side poured forward and entertained in a manner befitting the so-called Academy of Football. But what happens when that effervescence goes missing? Things get very ugly, seemingly. While West Ham’s back-line laboured again in the 3-0 home loss to Southampton, of greater concern was their failure to create. Dimitri Payet, Manuel Lanzini, Cheikou Kouyate and Mark Noble have all lost their sparkle, while new striker Simone Zaza is looking like a poor man’s Andy Carroll, if you can imagine such a thing.

@darlingkevin