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Who's Hot and Who's Not?

Ever since his horrendous injury when Stephen Hunt’s knee ‘collided’ with his head, Petr Cech has, perhaps understandably, looked a shadow of his former self. Gradually, he seems to be getting back to his best and the save he made from a point blank Sylvain Ebanks-Blake header on Saturday was the save of the season so far.

He showed great agility and great anticipation and that save alone is worthy of winning this week’s award.

Whilst poor old Chris Kirkland at Wigan may expect to pick this one up this week after conceding nine goals, I’m going to give the award to Wolves keeper Wayne Hennessy. He is a decent young keeper with a fine future ahead of him but when you are playing at Stamford Bridge against a rampant Chelsea side you can do without your keeper having a bad day.

At least two of the four goals will have left young Wayne thinking he could have done a great deal better.

Birmingham have made themselves into team who are very difficult to beat. They don’t score many goals so they need to be really tight at the back. Once again on Saturday I thought their centre-back Roger Johnson was exceptional.

He looks the part and he can play. Also, when he needs to put his body on the line he doesn’t hesitate. He is a defender who has made the step-up to the top league in real comfort.

It is almost impossible to pick out any individual from the Wigan back four. The quality of defending in that second half at White Hart Lane was just about as bad as I have ever seen at that level. All of them deserve the award.

There were a few exceptionally good midfield performances this week. Jimmy Bullard was superb for Hull, Aaron Lennon was at his best for Tottenham and Manchester United’s Darren Fletcher scored an absolute stunner.

Although all of the above players deserve a mention I am going to give the award to Chelsea’s Michael Essien. Two goals and a totally dominate performance showed why he is one of the best in the league.

I do feel bad picking on him again, honestly I do. Having said that there is no way that Liverpool’s Brazilian midfielder Lucas is good enough. He didn’t play any better or worse than he normally does in his side’s 2-2 draw with Manchester City but he did miss a glorious chance in injury time to win the game for his team.

There can’t be any doubt about this award this week. A seven minute hat-trick and five goals in total mean that Jermain Defoe is an easy choice.

I do like Fulham striker Bobby Zamora because he is a 100% tryer and he is a real nuisance to defenders. The problem is that he doesn’t score any goals!

He missed a good chance to give Fulham a deserved point at Birmingham and he constantly manages to miss the target.

Sunderland had a great win, Chelsea, Manchester United, Birmingham, Stoke and Blackburn will also be happy with their weekend’s work. However, the award can only go to nine goal Tottenham.

Wigan. I don’t need to say anymore.

Last 5 posts by Graham Fisher

• European round-up: Barca win with 9, Inter have it easy and Bayern Munich are looking good - February 9th, 2010
• Premier League - Who's Hot and Who's Not? - February 8th, 2010
• Portsmouth fans deserve better than this - February 7th, 2010
• Premier League predictions - United back to the top, but only for 24 hours? - February 6th, 2010
• Rangers facing good and bad times - February 5th, 2010