Who Are the Most Hated Players in the Premier League?

For all the talk of the need for professional behavior in the Premier League, some individuals just don’t really care. It really doesn’t matter whether your Javier Mascherano or the local boy that always heads out to the pitch on that Friday afternoon, sometimes boys will always be boys.

Perhaps it's the ‘villains’ within themselves but some of them just can't seem to resist the temptation of moving into the spotlight. Ashley Cole can't seem to have a decent two-minute conversation with Mike Riley and Lee Bowyer just had to punch Kieron Dyer (his teammate at the time) across the face in front of thousands of Newcastle supporters, in what would prove to be one of the most bizarre football brawls in history.

I mean, after all, is it really too much to ask our football heroes to be decent, caring individuals on the pitch? Can our Premier League stars not realize how fortunate they are to be playing football for millions of dollars a year -- when many of us would gladly do it for free?

Maybe there's reasoning behind why, we, the general public, just can't stand some of these footballers. Sure, their ability is first-class but do they really have to walk around with that swagger of arrogance? 

The countless acts of child-like behavior often lead us to ask ourselves: Who are the most hated players in the Premier League?

It's a simple question really but one that certainly requires some thought. For all the talk of how great some of the players in the EPL are and how they are model citizens, we certainly have some troublemakers in the world's top league.

The obvious name that comes to mind is none other than Newcastle’s Joey Barton.

We hate him for pulling his pants down and mooning the crowd while managing to pull off an intentional assault at Sunderland's Dickson Ehutu. Oh, and did I forget to mention that he hit out at Manchester City fans, stating that they would not be where the were without him, despite committing an impressive series of crimes while at the club -- some of which should have surely landed to English midfielder in jail. 

He's also attacked one of his own teammates in Ousmane Dabo in what his teammate referred to as a 'savage, unprovoked, and worst of all, cowardly assault' during a training session prior to a Manchester derby match. Barton simply referred to incident as an 'act of self-defence' but if you consider that Dabo almost had his retina taken out along with the threat of lost eyesight, you can hardly take Barton's words seriously. 

But maybe I’m wrong. Maybe Joey does have a point.

Maybe the consistent assaults, selfish attitude, suspensions, attacks on teammates and opponents alike was all just a coincidence. After all, who really knows in the world of Joey Barton?

Anything is possible. He sure proved it by getting out of jail on more than one occasion.

Not to be outdone though, West Ham's Craig Bellamy certainly joins Barton in the category of most hated with his share of controversy over the course of his career. He’s hit out at Alan Shearer through supposed ‘drunken texts’ and demanded that he was loaned to Celtic after the Newcastle board was about to sell him to Birmingham City for 6 million pounds, stating that he wasn’t about to play for some ‘shit football team’. That’s not mentioning the reported attack with a golf club on John Arne Riise during his turbulent one-year stint with Liverpool.

El Hadji Diouf certainly hasn’t endeared himself to fans across England as some view him as your typical cheater – a player willing to do anything to get that step ahead through diving or any kind of simulation. For a player of his frame and physical stature, he sure goes down easily if a defender lays a hand or two on him.

He’s also put his country ahead of Bolton and Liverpool as he admitted to deliberately getting himself sent off in order to play for Senegal. It’s funny how he decided to put his country ahead of his club as he announced his official retirement from international football at just 26 years of age. Maybe he just likes that early bath in England while earning millions to watch his teammates play football.

More recently, his teammates, including club skipper Kevin Nolan, have hit out at Diouf and have consequently led the Senegalese to announce that he would be looking for a new club at season’s end – regardless of whether Bolton make it out of relegation or not.

Another man notorious for his transfer claims is Chelsea’s Ashley Cole. A sensational talent that came through the ranks at the old Highbury Stadium, Cole was involved in a ‘tapping-up’ scandal with then Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho. The two clubs finally came to a conclusion on the transfer deadline day with William Gallas and 5 million pounds being swapped for the England international.

Citing in his autobiography that the Gunners ‘betrayed him’ with a £55,000 per-week contract, Arsenal fans gladly refer to him as “Cashley Cole” and often taunt him with fake dollar bills.

There’s no question that the main motive behind Cole’s departure from Ashburton Grove is none other than one thing: money. How footballers nowadays can refer to £55,000 per-week as betrayal I will never really know.

He has also been the center for much animosity after his recent spat at match referee Steve Bennett when he turned his back to the referee after a harsh challenge on Tottenham’s Alan Hutton. It could easily turned out to be an early bath for Cole but the incident shed light on the issue of dissent towards match officials throughout the country.

And to round out my list, West Ham's Lee Bowyer makes an appearance after his series of assaults while at Leeds and Newcastle. Of course, we all know about the Kieron Dyer fallout at St. James Park but Bowyer was also involved in a similar case earlier in his career while still at Leeds. Assaulting a foreign boy at the Leeds City Center along with Tottenham's Jonathan Woodgate, Bowyer was eventually forced out to West Ham in the 2003 EPL season.