Our selection headaches have ceased bothering us now, we've become accustomed to that nagging sensation inside our head that we call our brain. So far this week Sturridge, Lukaku and Mirallas have been hot-wiring our neural paths and now it's time for Nicolas Anelka to do the same.
Priced at £5.5m we're wondering if Nicolas Anelka was sent down by one of the fantasy football gods (The Great Enabler perhaps?) who, upon seeing the £14m and £12m prices on Van Persie and Bale, thought to show pity on us mortals and solve all our problems.
Okay gods... what's the catch?
Anelka has averaged a points-per-game (PPG) over the full course of his travels through the Premier League of 4.9. To put this into perspective Crouch, Agonglahor, Shane Long all scored about the same last year with an average starting price of £6.5m, both this year and last.
Anelka's FPL high of 5.5 PPG came spearheading Chelsea's attack in 2008/09, scoring 19 goals in 37 games and a total of 179 points. He ended the season with a FPL value of £9.9m. His low came two years later, still at Chelsea, after being fielded on the right wing and managing just 6 goals and 4.2 PPG.
Now at West Brom, a better comparison may have been his time at Bolton, a season and half between 2006-2008. Given given pure striker's duty, he managed a PPG of 4.7 on the back of 21 goals in 53 games.
But this was 8 years ago!
He's not knackered though, and unless he gets a proper serious injury we can see him being the Baggies main striker this year, as he has been in pre-season. He may be rotated on occasion, but won't everyone?
The main problem with Anelka in our eyes is that his upside (upper points potential) is not all that exciting. A 4.7 PPG forward like Anelka at £5.5m may prove exceptional value but high upside is vital in FPL and is what you should be aiming for with your three striker spots. Leave the value to be found in defence and GK.
See also:
- Selection Headaches #1 - Daniel Sturridge
- Selection Headaches #2 - Romelu Lukaku
- Selection Headaches #3 - Kevin Mirallas
Still to come... Edin Dzeko
