It may only be just over a month since the World Cup has ended but that time has dragged by with very little football to watch and very few interesting transfer stories. What a relief then that the first weekend of the Premier League season would prove to be so unpredictable unless you were at Stamford Bridge. This little article will break down the best and worst of the first weekend of the Premier League season.

Best Players:

1. Joe Hart: It was obvious wasn’t it, Hart was immense and even Shay Given couldn’t help but smile as his English counter-part, quite literally, single-handedly kept Tottenham at bay. In the first game of the season Man City fans had reason for both hope and despair. In Joe Hart they have one of the finest Goalkeepers of this young England generation.
2. Gary Taylor-Fletcher: Marlon Harewood may have taken all the headlines with 2 goals and an assist but do not be fooled this performance was built around Taylor-Fletcher. A seasoned Football League campaigner, Taylor-Fletcher was everywhere in his Premiership debut and every time Blackpool had cause to celebrate he wasn’t far from the action.
3. Didier Drogba: It really speaks for itself, a hat-trick to end last season, a hat-trick to start this one, Drogba is the form player in the Premier League and through his free-kicks has added another string to an already very fine bow.

Worst Players:

1. Basically any Wigan player: But let’s go with Alcaraz, the Paraguayan defender who played quite well at the World Cup made it look like Titus Bramble could’ve taken his place if eligible; lethargic, slow and couldn’t find a pass this was a debut to forget then forget again.
2. Basically most Goalkeepers: It was the weekend of Howlers as a few goalkeepers couldn’t emulate Joe Hart. Tim Howard and Pepe Reina gifted other sides goals whilst Chris Kirkland, Scott Carson and Robert Green all showed why two Under-21’s were called up to the England Squad.
3. Joe Cole: Couldn’t get involved in the game until a wild lunge took him out of it. There was nothing dubious about this red card. The referee saw the play develop, saw the speed with which Cole went in shin high and game down hard. Kocielny escaped relatively unscathed but you do not take an injury or the reputation of the player into account when deciding these things. If you did Lee Cattermole would have been off, earlier, for leading with the elbow on Gary O’Connor. As for Joe a 3 game ban to start his Liverpool career? At least there’s the Europa Cup.

Best Goal of the Weekend: Has already been covered here in much more detail, even if you’ve read this article watch it again as it truly was a joy.

Best Team of the Weekend: The obvious choice is Blackpool, the plucky promoted side thrashing an established Premier League side away and in style. However, is it really that obvious, on my viewing Blackpool were not that great, a few lucky bounces presented them with opportunities and a fluke from Baptista gave the their fourth. You can only beat what is put in front of you and Blackpool had no challenge from Wigan (more on that later) at times it looked like it was how many they could score than would. To give this to Blackpool without recognition of the great team-work of Tottenham in the face of Man City’s 100 million pound team would be poor. Blackburn and of course Chelsea, who do what they always do, also deserve mention but my Team of the Weekend was Aston Villa. In the face of the disruption of losing their Manager 5 days before kick-off and the thought of losing one of their best players in the very near future, Villa had every right to lie down for West Ham at the weekend and no-one would’ve blamed them. Instead they brought on Marc Albrighton and let him wreak havoc, supported by the lovable giant John Carew (he’s bigger than me and you apparently) and a stoic James Milner, the Villains put on a show of attacking football and destroyed West Ham, granted much like Wigan, any side that features James Tomkins as a centre-half are likely to be beaten.

Worst Team of the Weekend: Without equivocation, Wigan. In the BBC text coverage of the game Garth Crooks summed it up best:

“I am disgusted. This is a disgraceful performance from Wigan. These are Premier League players we are talking about.”

He was right too; this was the single worst performance from any team that I have seen since Charlton played under Les Reed. The Wigan ‘players’ were diabolically bad in the first half and only really bad in the second. They couldn’t pick out a four yard pass to each other, didn’t pressure the ball and when they were beaten, stayed beaten. Every. Single. Time. That the ball went into the box, Blackpool players went in after it whilst the Wigan players stood and looked and hoped nothing would come of it. After the opening minute salvo from Blackpool, Chris Kirkland roared at his defence, after the corner he roared again but he got no response. I wouldn’t be surprised if he packed it in then and let the game get away from Wigan but he is too much of a professional for that he simply had a bad game too. Wigan did not present any of the quintessential Premier League virtues of pressure, pace and at times brute strength. They didn’t even have the common decency to get frustrated and start picking up cards (just kidding!). If anything Wigan took that game for granted and it showed, Blackpool won and deservedly so and with Chelsea and Tottenham due up next may god have mercy on them.

Best Moment of the Weekend: Was the return to refereeing of Mark Halsey and the black-armband he sported in respect to and memory of Adam Stansfield.

Worst Moment of the Weekend: Seeing Kenwyne Jones roll about in pain after a clumsy challenge from Jody Craddock, there is still no word on any possible injury but as he left the field it didn’t look good.

There we have it the first Premier League weekend in the books, now I know Manchester United haven’t played yet so much of the above could be premature and I hope so, because that should make it an interesting game tonight.

Agree? Disagree? I might have time to respond to you below but I’m going to guess it’s about Blackpool. Or Joe Cole.

The halcyon days of the 60′s, 70′s and 80′s were apparently a boom time in England’s glorious history of great goalkeepers. From the benchmark that was the great Gordon Banks and his understudy, Peter Springett, to the rotation of Ray Clemence and Peter Shilton in the 70′s and early 1980′s, England always had a top class goalkeeper.

As Chris Woods and then David Seaman continued the tradition, despite every other pundit claiming the English goalkeeper was a dying breed,  but until Seaman’s retirement from England duty in 2002, that looked an empty prediction. Since then England’s number one has rotated between David James, Paul Robinson, Scott Carson, with sporadic appearances from Robert Green, Ben Foster, Chris Kirkland and Joe Hart. An unusual situation after decades of stability between the sticks, which clarifies a pressing issue for Capello. Just who can he trust with the number one shirt?

The obvious choice is David James, but the situation at Portsmouth has had far reaching consequences. James found himself in a situation were Portsmouth wouldn’t play him as it would trigger a clause in his contract rewarding him with an extension. Of course, being the goalkeeper of a side marooned at the foot of the Premiership table and with a worrying tendency to implode under pressure, is James really the best English goalkeeper?

Euro 2004 saw James’ performances came under criticism after admitting he hadn’t studied French set pieces, when England were undone by 5 minutes of madness in the opening game of the tournament. A penalty from Henry and a free kick from Zidane saw England collapse and ultimately end up with the harder run of the tournament.

Yet since those rickets, consistency has returned to his game and as one of English footballs more eloquent footballers, James would be one of the three goalkeepers for me and probably keep the No.1 shirt unless his form completely collapses before the end of the season.The other two places are realistically up for grabs.

To all intents and purposes, the stand out English goalkeeper of the Premiership season has been Joe Hart and what a season. He’s certainly been one of the key reasons that Birmingham City have had such a successful season so far. In fact,I was stunned that Hart didn’t make his second appearance for England in Wednesday nights friendly against Egypt. I’ve been very impressed with his form throughout the season and felt for him when Manchester City splashed out big bucks to bring Shay Given to Eastlands in January 2009.

One criticism that seemingly comes Hart’s way from some quarters is his age. It seems a perennial English trait that players are perpetually too young to play for their country. Hart has plenty of international experience, with his time with the Under-21 squad even scoring a penalty for his country. Yes, it may not be the same level of intensity, but competition experience is invaluable, what ever level it is achieved at. The future England custodian of the gloves for me and a shoe in for the second goalkeeping place.

The final place is the one that several people have a real chance of grabbing, but I’ll rule out the three who I wouldn’t consider. Poor Scott Carson, another one who was touted as the future of English goalkeeper until a wet night at Wembley in 2007 that saw the end of the dreadful Steve Mclaren reign. Critics blamed the pitch, oblivious to the wonderful football that Croatia played. Tactically inept and with his powers of spin unable to cover his failings, Mclaren went down taking Carson’s England career with it.

He’s never recovered and several high profile mistakes last season saw his hopes of an England recall all but disappear. Carson simply hasn’t had any luck with certain mistakes perhaps over analysed in the media but I think this World Cup has come too soon for him. Add to that with him not playing Premiership football as well  coupled with not being the best English goalkeeper in the Championship and it’s doubtful he’ll get a sniff unless bubonic plague strikes the England goalkeeper set up.

Chris Kirkland is another that time has not been kind to. Touted as the next great England keeper,  injuries stalled his career development and it is only in the last couple of seasons that he has managed to get a consistent level of appearances together. The irony of goalkeeping was shown in no clearer light than on November 22nd when Kirkland conceded 9 goals in Wigan’s mauling at the hands of  Tottenham.

Remarkably, without Kirkland, Spurs would have probably scored more, he saved a further 7 shots on target. Classed as injury prone, despite playing over 80 league games in his last 3 seasons, Kirkland has fallen behind Hart and would currently be 5th in my opinion. At 28, time is certainly not against him, but it’ll be a major surprise if he gets back to England duty.

Ben Foster currently can’t get on Manchester United’s bench which says it all and he is a real pickle at Old Trafford. Bags of potential but I don’t care how good you are, playing for Manchester United reserves occasionally isn’t anywhere near the level of getting in to the England set up. I’ve a real fear that he could disappear like Richard Wright did after joining Arsenal and then a disjointed spell at Everton. Now back at Ipswich Town, his is a career of real missed chances.

Which brings me to my final two choices. Paul Robinson and Robert Green.  Last night Capello seemed to give Green the chance to prove he could be part of the squad by playing the whole 90 minutes of the friendly. This seemingly would draw a curtain on Paul Robinson’s chances of making the squad unless James, Hart or Green falls injured.  Green didn’t really have much to do and he has certainly been fairly consistent over the last 3 seasons at West Ham United.

So overall I think Capello will pick James, Green and Hart with Robinson as 4th choice on stand by. The wild card would be Chris Kirkland but overall, I think Fabio will stick with the devil he knows but what do you think??

For me, there is only one English goalkeeper that can be England’s number one for South Africa next summer and that man is Paul Robinson. After being so badly treated at Tottenham under Juande Ramos and unfairly blamed for giving away a soft goal for England against Croatia, Robinson has finally got back to his best. He was hung out to dry by Steve Mclaren after Gary Neville’s wayward back pass bobbled over his foot.

Everyone conveniently forgot the string of saves Robinson had made to keep England in a game they were a poor second best in that night. Right now, he is playing better than any of his counterparts, with probably the exception of Steve Harper at Newcastle United and Joe Hart at Birmingham City. Forget the Robert Green argument, he’s nowhere near good enough.

Of the goalkeepers available to Capello, Robinson is head and shoulders above all others and has been for the best part of a year. David James is injured and playing for a team in free-fall, both on and off the pitch. Robert Green is bang out of form and consistently makes mistake after mistake. He also has a tendency to try and deliberately foul players whenever possible.For all his bravado and wearing “England’s number 6″ on his gloves, he’s not good enough. He’s always been poor coming off his line and his aerial ability is not the best.

Poor old Ben Foster has suffered from some rather unnecessary criticism but still can’t shift the dreadful Thomas Kuszczak from between the sticks at Old Trafford.There is no doubt that the lad can go a long way in the game, but he’s suffering from a crisis in confidence at the moment, but he’s still a better goalkeeper than Kuszczak.

Scott Carson still suffers from a lack of concentration at West Bromwich Albion and still seems to bear the scars from the defeat to Croatia in November 2007 at Wembley. For all his shot stopping ability, Carson can still make some all mighty howlers from out of nowhere and seems to have fallen away from anywhere near the England team.

Poor old Chris Kirkland simply can’t keep fit, whenever he gets on a great run of form, his long standing back injury seems to flare up and take out of the side. Despite the 9 goal mauling Wigan Athletic suffered at White Hart Lane, it’s no exaggeration to say it could have been twenty if it wasn’t for Kirkland. He showed such promise at Coventry but injuries blighted his time at Anfield and he’s never been able to shake the tag of being injury prone.

Other than Robinson and Hart, the other stand out candidate for the three places in South Africa for me is Steve Harper at Newcastle. He’s now getting the opportunity to show just how good a goalkeeper he actually is week in week out after Shay Given left last January for Manchester City. Whilst most people would have been itching for a move, Harper has shown incredible loyalty to Newcastle over the years.

After 16 years service, with 12 of those as Given’s back up, he’s incredibly only played 151 games for Newcastle, with 86 of those appearances coming in the last four seasons. He has constantly served the club with pride and is now in the form of his life. Whilst others may have viewed Given’s depature as a real blow, having a player of the ability of Harper would certainly soften the blow.

Whilst some people seem to point out that you need a great goalkeeper to win the World Cup, with the exception of Buffon in 2006, you have to go all the way back to 1982 to find a team with a world class goalkeeper that won the World Cup. Every other winner since then has had good, and in some cases distinctly average custodians between the sticks. Paul Robinson is far better than average and Capello would do well to welcome him back into the fold.  With Harper and Hart, that would be a dependable and quality set of goalkeepers to choose from.

We thought it’d be fun to pick our all-star injury football team featuring those Premier League players that always seem to be injured. Thanks to the EPL Talk readers who participated in last weekend’s EPL Talk Chat for the idea.

1. Chris Kirkland
2. Gary Neville
3. Mikael Silvestre
4. Jonathan Woodgate
5. Ledley King
6. Owen Hargreaves
7. Kieron Dyer
8. Tim Cahill
9. Craig Bellamy
10. Michael Owen
11. Louis Saha

Subs:
Andy Johnson
Mark Viduka
Valeri Bojinov
Emile Heskey
Didier Drogba

What current players are missing that should be featured in this squad? Click the comments link below and let us know.