It's in the Sunday Mirror because they have been slighted by this. They built him up as a hero to sell newspapers and now it transpires he was not quite as much of a hero.
None of us can judge whether he 'froze' or not but generally in an emergency situation it is better for the F/O to fly the aircraft so the Captain can manage the emergency. That appears to be what happened. Of course the newspapers will all think that the Captain should be flying the aircraft but most reporters haven't got a clue about operating an airliner.
There is a point about why he hadn't descended to a lower level earlier in the flight when it was so cold but situations are rarely simple when things go wrong and that has been thrashed out already with many showing that the fuel temperature never readuced to a point where they had to descend. But then there is only one fuel temperature measurement location, etc. etc. ...