The medication has been dished out in large doses already this week as we batted about the risks and rewards of starting either of Daniel Sturridge or Romelu Lukaku in your GW1 team. Next up is Everton's Kevn Mirallas.
It may sound odd for Mirallas to be giving us a headache. He's hotly tipped around all fantasy football websites, and indeed was one the very first players we got excited about a few months ago when we started this blog (see Everton Under Roberto Martinez). When the price list was announced though we were very disappointed to see Mirallas at £7.5m. He didn't have a great season last year and we'd hoped for a price price around £6.5m, closer to that of attacking midfield team-mates Pienaar (£7m) and Osman (£6.5m).
A £7.5m price tag puts him into a little bit of a FPL deadzone as far as players go. Can you remember many midfielders that started the season at £7-8m that were any good to your teams? This price bracket is usually reserved for players like Sessegnon who do great one season at £6m then get a super price hike the next but don't really have enough going for them to deserve it.
Instead, it's properly recognised elite mids at £9-9.5m or breakout players at £6-6.5m who are often the key fantasy midfielders. Fitting a £7.5m player into your midfield often means forgoing on an elite midfielder, or upgrading on a £6m mid with cash from your forward line and defence.
So, is Mirallas worth it? Over the full course of last season he averaged 4.7 pts per 90 minutes played. On it's own that's not good enough for a £7.5m price tag but he didn't start so well and missed a large chunk of the season with injury. Once he got back into the team he managed to pick his P90 up to 5.2 scoring 5 times in the final 12 games, with 1 assist.
A P90 of 5.2 is definitely worth a £7.5m price tag but he'll have to pick it up even more this season if he wants to become really essential and share status in your team with the likes of Walcott and Hazard. The pre-season indications though are good. Martinez is a much more passionate about an attacking style of football than Moyes and has recognised Mirallas as the key player in the Toffees attack. He's also been given a share of free-kicks and corners during pre-season which should help his assists.
Verdict
The chances are that Kevin Mirallas will do at least as well as he did at the tail end of last season. He has as much potential as anyone to make a mockery of his starting price but things will have to click into place for him to become a truly essential asset this season, especially when you weigh him up against similar priced players like Berbatov and Dzeko.
He is one of two or three players that are 50-50 for our own team at the moment as we shuffle around different options between midfield and attack. The clock is ticking...
