Everton Mints

Few could have predicted the opening day rout of Everton by Arsenal and even fewer would have predicted the ensuing run of poor results for an Everton team who began the season as Champions League qualifying hopefuls but ended up resembling grade A relegation fodder. Certainly those Fantasy Football enthusiasts who had backed players like Baines and Cahill to shine pre-season were getting little in return from their investment.

Luckily for Toffee fans, in recent weeks David Moyes men have begun to turn their fortunes around. As new signings like Heitinga and Bilyaletdinov have become more settled and influential players such as Phil Neville have returned from injury, Everton have become to resemble the hard working, hard to beat team we have seen over previous seasons.

This upturn in form has seen the Toffee’s unbeaten run of games being extended to 7 with a comfortable 2-0 victory over top four hopefuls Manchester “loadsa money” City. From a Fantasy Football perspective it was this dominating performance which has made more than one person sit up and take note of Everton players once again. Two players in particular who have stood out during the past few games weeks are the microphone imitating, Belgian international Marouane Fellaini and the South African international Steven “Schilo” Pienaar.

Fellaini has recently begun to win over a number of people who saw him as a lumbering waste of 15 million big ones, giving away silly fouls in dangerous places, getting out jumped in the air, not tracking midfield runners and getting booked left, right and centre. Fast forward to the past few games and the new Fellaini has been receiving superlatives where cards once were, being praised for his running power, composure on the ball and a Marseille roulette against Manchester City which would have had the great Zinadine Zidane himself reaching for the Kleenex. Most importantly he’s begun to win over the FPL bonus judges with 10 bonus points from his last 5 games topping up the points he got from a goal and assist during the period.

Pienaar, now in his third season as a Toffee, looks to be firmly settled into the rigorous nature of the English top tier and appears to be making much more of an impact throughout matches than he did in his first stuttering season at Everton. This has been in evidence recently with the former Ajax man adding goals to his game with 3 in his last 3 games. Combine this with 11 bonus points in the last four games and its clear to see why people are considering the South African international for their Fantasy Football teams.

Both players can be found on our Watchlist and at 6.5 and 6.3 respectively fall firmly in the mid-range bracket of midfield investments. Certainly a number of people will be looking towards investment in Everton players on top of these two and as players such as Arteta and Jagiellka get nearer to full fitness the options for investment will increase. A word of warning though, after entertaining a Sunderland team licking their wounds after they got Pardewed by Chelsea and a visit to Wigan, Everton have liv, CHE, MAN U, tot to contend with so treat any investment with caution.