Selection Headaches #4 - Nicolas Anelka

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

The Transfers are Rolling In

The cash is certainly beginning to be splashed by Premier League clubs and with the Fantasy Premier League price list expected to be released within a week or two you can bet those guys are busy behind the scenes too.

We've decided to forgo updating our transfer round-up page 'til later in the week in order to have a quick catch of some of the new signings to catch our eye in the last few days.

Nicolas Anelka (West Brom)

At 34 many will have doubts about and our most recent memory of him in the Premier League is being used out wide and not the goalscorer he was. If he can hold down the central striker role at West Brom he should be a hit. That's an if though, and we'll have to see how they shape up in pre-season.

Marco Van Ginkel (Chelsea)

A box to box midfielder who can score and create and will certainly shine given chance, but barring a couple of injuries, will have to compete with Lampard amongst others for game time so not an option for your fantasy team just yet.

Paulinho (Tottenham)

The much-coveted Brazilian has been a 1 in 4 goalscorer over his career (42 goals in 153 games) so should push for 10 goals this season, although has just 8 assists to his name in that same time so we'd expect ~150pts from him at best - so a fantasy price tag around £7m might see some interest from us.

Arouna Kone (Everton)

We talked up the potential for a new striker in our post "Everton under Martinez" and indeed mentioned the lively Ivorian as an option. He'll certainly expand Everton's attacking play but he's never really been a truly prolific goalscorer. We'd expect there'll be better options in Everton's team and for your 3 forward spots.