Cameron Jerome finally opened his goal-scoring account for the new season this past weekend. Unfortunately for Jerome, he was left with nothing to celebrate when West Brom roared back with three goals to claim the upset 3-1 victory over Birmingham. While Jerome was appropriately critical of Birmingham’s inability to put the game away, specifically stating that they lack the “killer instinct“, Jerome appears to be picking up where he left off last season and with 20 Fantasy Premier League (FPL) points from the first five games is worthy of a Fantasy look after a slow start that has seen his FPL price drop from 6.0 to an even more appealing 5.8.
With two assists against Bolton in week 3 to go along with his first goal last weekend, Jerome is well-positioned to equal or exceed last season’s totals of 10 goals, 4 assists, and 14 bonus points. Building on those numbers should be feasible in what looks to be an improved Birmingham attack with a reinvigorated Sebastian Larsson, an emerging Craig Gardner, and Premier League returnee Alexander Hleb in an advanced attacking role.
While it’s early in the season, Jerome’s return rate of a goal or assist in 2 of 5 games is in line with his production rate last season, when he had a goal or assist in 13 games out of the 31 in which he appeared. Also, Jerome is actually off the mark earlier, as he did not score his first goal last season until his sixth game of the season (and Birmingham’s 12th game).
As for whether this is the right time, rating Birmingham’s fixtures depends some on (i) how many games are included and (ii) how you rate a match with Everton at this point in the season. Over 5 games, the schedule is probably average at best with a couple of difficult games, while over a seven-game span it begins to edge toward favorable (WIG, EVE, ars, BLP, avl, WHM, stk).
An interesting note on Jerome from last season is that he did not appear to favor or dislike stronger or weaker competition, and had goals against Liverpool (GW12), Manchester United (GW21), Everton (GW30), and Manchester City (GW34).
For comparison purposes, a quick glance at some of the other sub – 6.0 forwards finds only four who have outscored Jerome thus far: Andrew Carroll (5.6; 31 points), Johan Elmander (5.6; 29 points), Moussa Dembele (5.7; 28 points), and Peter Odemwingie (5.0; 24 points). Other budget names worthy of mention include Nikola Kalinic (5.5; 19 points) and recent signing Victor Obinna (5.5; 4 points).
Owned by 39% of the teams, Carroll remains the undisputed “budget forward du jour” for the time being, and Carroll currently dominates Jerome in FPL points and Opta categories such as aerial duels won and shot attempts. Nonetheless, Jerome presents an intriguing differential going forward and remains one of the few budget forwards (and the only one of the names in the preceding paragraph) who has previously scored double digit goals during a Premier League season.