Premier League Heroes and Villains

JOE takes a look back at the weekend's Premier League action and picks out its heroes, villains, favourite goal and best manager.

By Conor Hogan

Heroes of the weekend

Gareth Bale: Bale’s performances since his Inter Milan masterclasses have been somewhat indifferent. Against Blackburn, however, he was immaculate – a constant source of terror in the hearts of Rovers defenders. Is there anything this Welsh genius can’t do? The 21-year-old opened the scoring for Tottenham in the 16th minute with a bullet of a header, and then managed to create one in the 44th minute. Bale made one of his trademark runs down the left-hand side before crossing the ball in for a grateful Roman Pavlyuchenko. Bale then scored a second in the second half, when he netted after good build up play from Alan Hutton and Rafael van der Vaart.

Ricardo Fuller: Two wins in four days for Tony Pulis’ Stoke City side have seen them rise from the relegation zone and into the top half. The Liverpool win was particularly impressive, their high-tempo performance causing Roy Hodgson’s team no end of problems. Ricardo Fuller’s strike against the Reds was an altogether scrappier one than his goal of the year contender against Birmingham on Tuesday, though it was to prove no less important.

Boudewijn Zenden: Sunderland’s 3-0 away victory against Chelsea was a gobsmackingly surprising result, and ex-pensioner Zenden was one of the best players on the pitch. His performance was so good in fact that it was only marginally overshadowed by his embarrassing ‘dad dance’ to celebrate Asamoah Gyan’s goal. The 34-year-old Dutch winger has previous when it comes to embarrassing goal celebrations, such as the time he fell into an orange box when playing for Paris St Germain.

Villains of the weekend

Roberto Mancini: After coming under serious criticism for Manchester City’s negative performance against Man Utd mid-week, Mancini astonished the Eastlands faithful by substituting Carlos Tevez for Gareth Barry while desperately in search of a goal against Birmingham.

Despite being in fourth place in the table, City fans are getting increasingly restless - the Birmingham stalemate was greeted by a chorus of boos from those who still remained. Roberto Mancini’s team have won less than half of their home games this season and have scored only seven goals in those seven games.

Dimitar Berbatov: After impressing at the start of the season, especially with his hat-trick against Liverpool, the Bulgarian has now failed to put the ball in the net for 58 days. As well as this, his overall contribution in the Aston Villa draw was pretty negligible.

Joey Barton: While the incident occurred midweek and not at the weekend, it would be a grave oversight on our part if we didn’t at some point make reference to Joey Barton punching Morten Gamst Pedersen in the chest. It was an inexplicable moment of hot-headed idiocy from a man who continually declares that he wants to be a seen as a reformed man and role model. The ex-jailbird is probably the last man who should be trying to take the troubled but talented Andy Carroll under his wing.

Goal of the weekend

Nedum Onouha: This week we were absolutely spoiled for choice for brilliant goals, for instance Ricardo Fuller's run and long range shot against Birmingham and Johan Elmander's Cruyff inspired effort. The best goal of the week has to be Nedum Onouha's stunning individual goal against Chelsea, which has been compared favourably with Ricky Villa's 1981 goal in the FA Cup against Manchester City.

Manager of the weekend

Steve Bruce: Less than two weeks ago, Bruce and his chairman Niall Quinn were apologising profusely to Sunderland fans after their team’s disastrous 5-1 drubbing at the hands of arch rivals Newcastle. Now they are only three points off fourth place in the table after inflicting on defending champions Chelsea their worst loss of the Abrahamovic era. The Blues hadn’t conceded a single goal going into the match, but were absolutely torn apart. It is fair to say that 3-0 probably flattered Chelsea, as Peter Cech was their best player.