Loop: Most viewed posts doesn't work – why?

Hi guys,

for displaying the most viewed posts i did install the plugin “wordpress popular posts”. With its new tables in the database, i can figure out, which post is most viewed. The SQL statement, DOES work already (tested in phpmyadmin) like this:

SELECT p. *
FROM wp_posts AS p
LEFT JOIN wp_popularpostsdata AS d ON p.ID = d.postid
ORDER BY d.pageviews DESC

But when implementing it into the blogroll (category.php), it just gives me the newest entries of my site … why is that?
Where is the mistake?

<?php
						$popular_posts = new WP_Query('SELECT p.* FROM wp_posts AS p LEFT JOIN wp_popularpostsdata AS d ON p.ID = d.postid ORDER BY d.pageviews DESC');
						if($popular_posts->have_posts()): ?>
							<?php while($popular_posts->have_posts()): $popular_posts->the_post(); ?>
							<div class="technik-item-small">
								<?php if(has_post_thumbnail()): ?>
								<?php $image = wp_get_attachment_image_src(get_post_thumbnail_id($post->ID), 'widget-image-thumb'); ?>
								<div class="block-image"><a href='<?php the_permalink(); ?>' title='<?php the_title(); ?>'><img src="<?php echo $image[0]; ?>" alt="<?php the_title(); ?>"  width='90' height='90' /></a><?php echo $icon; ?></div>
								<?php else: ?>
								<div class="block-image"><a href='<?php the_permalink(); ?>' title='<?php the_title(); ?>'><img src="<?php bloginfo('template_directory'); ?>/timthumb.php?src=<?php bloginfo('template_directory'); ?>/images/thumbnail.png&w=90&h=90" alt="<?php the_title(); ?>"  width='90' height='90' /></a><?php echo $icon; ?></div>
								<?php endif; ?>
								<h2><a href='<?php the_permalink(); ?>' title='<?php the_title(); ?>'><?php the_title(); ?></a></h2>
							</div>
							<?php endwhile; ?>
						<?php endif; ?>

Sorry for my bad english ??
Kind regards, DjMG