Five years after a planned move to the West Ham fell through, Benedict Saul “Benni” McCarthy has finally agreed an 18-month deal with the Hammers, ending his 4 year stint with relegation rivals Blackburn Rovers. Rather depressingly the South African’s arrival at the Boleyn Ground for an undisclosed fee is probably the most interesting transfer of this window from a Fantasy Football perspective. But is he going to be a hindrance or a benni-fit to our teams? (wow, I amaze myself sometimes)
The South African has scored four goals in 16 appearances for Blackburn this season but has spent most of the campaign on the bench. This is in stark contrast to his first season playing for the blue and whites where he bagged an impressive 24 goals in 50 appearances and earned links to teams as good as Chelsea. Regrettably for him those moves never materialized (probably because they were nothing more than excitable tabloid horse excrement) and he remained at Blackburn where his goal output gradually diminished and attitude began to stink worse than halitosis Dave’s breath after eating an onion.
History tells us that if he can regain his form under the expert guidance of Gianfranco Zola, and form an effective partnership with Carlton Cole, the former Champions League winner has the goods to score the goals that could fire West Ham up the Premier League table. Unfortunately, the Irons striking options resemble something of a fantasy football minefield with 32-year-old McCarthy joining a club already containing 6 recognised strikers. It gets worse though because alongside McCarthy, the Hammers picked up two other deadline day transfers, Mido and Ilan, who signed on loan from Middlesbrough and 80’s band influencing French team St Etienne respectively. So thats McCarthy, Mido, Ilan, Cole, Diamanti, Franco (not the Spanish dictator), Nouble, Hines and Sears for Zola to choose from. One thing’s for sure, it’s going to take some time splitting the yummy wheat from the rubbish chaff.
The former Champions League winner is priced at £6.5m on the FPL game which, comparatively speaking, appears high when you can pick up a fit again Cole for £6.4mil. But if you are looking for a differential (sorry, let me just be a little bit sick) or you’re mental, he might be worth a cheeky look. My advice for now however would be to hold back and see what happens. You never know, you might find some benni-fit elsewhere (ok, so I did that joke twice, deal with it)