Welcome back to the second Barclay's Premier League Hot or Not inside a week, with the dust having barely settled from the midweek action, Manchester United had the chance to extend not only their lead at the top of the table this weekend as Chelsea visited Liverpool but also a chance to stretch their new clean sheet record.

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And that is exactly what happened, another 1-0 win (United's seventh in their last ten games), this time at home to Everton, extending the Premier League clean sheet record to twelve straight shut outs. Remember boring, boring Arsenal? Why not boring, boring Man United?

Edwin Van Der Saar clocked up quite an achievement himself this weekend after he broke the all time English football record for minutes played, without conceding. Not hard behind Nemanja Vidic however, Van Der Saar has actually been on holiday with Sir Alex Ferguson trusting Edwin's Madame Tussauds wax work between the sticks.

We heard a rumour the Dutchman didn't actually make a save in three or four of the games. The 38 year old must have an electric dog tag on, otherwise how does he stay awake?

Football is not blighted by all the money or by the 24 hour coverage it receives today. In truth, football is probably better now than it has ever been thanks to technology and better training methods, players are all fit and have to be able to kick the ball and not just the opposition in order to get a game.

That said, it is the lack of kicking the opposition that this article is all about.

Diving is the real "achilles heal" for modern football and it personally, makes me sick. Maybe it is because I was never able to dive, in truth, it never ever came into my mind but that is probably why I'm writing here and not being written about.

My old coach Clive Hands inspired me to write this after he gave me the headline, "look at me and I'll fall over" during a recent conversation. Diving is an embarrassment to the beautiful game and it is so annoying to hear our game called a "soft" sport because of the diving epidemic.

Sadly, the only reason that diving has become acceptable is the amount of top players in top leagues that would rather spend 90 minutes on their arse than put themselves about like the game was intended to be played.

News Flash: Juventus wouldn't sell Alessandro Del Piero for £100 million pounds.

Of course not "Old Lady", you like to hold onto your sparkling old gems.

Del Piero is one of my favourite all time players and I can remember watching him in his sprightly youth on Channel Four's Italian football show of a Sunday afternoon.

The now 34 year old has been called "past it" by many but the facts don‘t add up. In each of the last three seasons, the 91 times capped DelPiero has hit the 20 goals mark, that would be the three seasons between the ages of 31 and 33.

Not exactly past his best.

"Welcome to Port Elizabeth, next stop Antarctica" says something about the location of this beautiful city but few of you probably know much more than that.

South Africa's fifth largest city is also known as Nelson Mandela Bay or PE and is a 2010 FIFA World Cup host of eight games, including the third/fourth playoff.

Port Elizabeth is building a new stadium for the World Cup on the banks of the cities North End lake and it is due to be completed within the next 6 months.

Amazingly, when the World Cup was awarded to SA in may 2004, PE didn't even have a professional side and with a population of over one million people, it was possibly the biggest city in a football playing nation without a professional club.

Port Elizabeth's traditional powerhouses Rainbow Stars and Park United had followed PE Technikon's lead of dropping out of the first Division through the trap door.

I was having a flick through my 4-4-2 magazine when my attention was drawn to the amazing Russian Premier League (Rosgosstrakh Championship of Russia).

The 16 team league is one of the richest leagues in the world, thanks to plenty of other Abramovich types taking an interest in the football in their own back yard for a change. It is also like the Barclay's Premier League, as it is full of foreigners.

What I noticed was plenty teams being linked to Moscow and it got me thinking. London has Fulham, Chelsea, Tottenham Hotspur, Arsenal and West Ham United, which is a quarter of England's top flight.

CSKA Moscow, Dynamo Moscow, Lokomotiv Moscow, FC Moscow, FC Saturn Moscow and Spartak Moscow make up 6 of 16 top Russian sides, so would that mean the league was less representative of the country?

Well that's what I thought until I realised that two teams are actually, in Asia

The Scottish Premier League rarely gets the credit it deserves, despite a terrific performance in Europe last season when Rangers reached the UEFA Cup final and Celtic reached the last 16 of the UEFA Champions League for the second season in a row.

This season hasn't been so eye opening but there is still a ton of potential in the SPL and things still look bright for the future of the Scottish National team. If you don't believe me then just look through this list and see how many of the best players in the SPL are actually Scottish.

You wouldn't find as many Englishmen in the top 10 of the Barclay's Premier League. That's for sure.

So let's meet the SPL's top 10 players (in no particular order):-

Artur Boruc: Celtic

Top flight footballers may be able to play two games in a long weekend but it was too much for this writer.

As a result, Hot or Not was rested (with a smile, not a sulking face like Jermain Defoe) on Boxing Day but returns now with a look at Sunday's action.

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Liverpool are top of the league at the half way point, who would have suspected that? Well, I predicted a return to the top two for the red half of Merseyside but not many outside Liverpool did. Another win, this time 5-1 at Newcastle United but there is still along way to go, so we shall move on instead of counting chickens or miss's by Sami Hyppia.