When it comes to Fantasy talent, more often or not, you get what you pay for.
When the pre-season price lists emerged, we spent the weeks before kick-off lamenting the price of established heavy-hitters and harbouring hopes that a string of mid-price midfield talent could fill gaps in our squads. The savvy Fantasy manager could see the potential. There were secret meetings about the promise of Victor Moses, whispered pub conversations about the prospects of Jamie O’Hara.
Consistency comes as a price, however. When we take a punt on mid-price talent, we’re not in a position to rage when the points aren’t delivered. We will rage regardless but, when the mists clear, the reality is that we have to have patience to get the most from these players.
Or do we? With an international break denying us Fantasy action next weekend, there’s now an alarming gap between Gameweeks – a yawning void that can easily prompt the sturdiest of knees to twitch into a full blown jerk; particularly if the Gameweeks have so far failed to deliver.
There will be glares of frustration aimed at an array of players, many of which came into the season with weighty expectations on their shoulders. You can take the aforementioned Moses and O’Hara and add Scott Sinclair, Adel Taarabt, Stephane Sessegnon and, in particular Charles N’Zogbia – currently the third most owned midfielder in the Fantasy Premier League (FPL) game. Should Chris Brunt and Stewart Downing draw further blanks in their matches this weekend, you can then throw their names into the hat.
A hit-list? A compilation of failing Fantasy talent that’s ripe for the chop? While the international break will tempt wholesale changes from the suffering Fantasy manager, short-term squad surgery has to be controlled. Our mid-price talent should surely be given time to demonstrate their worth.
The signs have been positive enough – Taarabt struck the woodwork twice at Wigan today, Moses had further opportunities and struck the bar at Swansea, Sinclair was also denied by the bar against Sunderland. Should we expect more? Did we really expect such players to deliver on their promise immediately?
The answer to that depends greatly on whether your heavy-hitters have been performing. If you’re without Wayne Rooney, Luis Suarez and David Silva, then their pulling power over the break will be substantial and is likely to prompt change. Come the revolution, the ailing mid-price midfielder could be first to go – downgraded to bench-warming fodder, sacrificed to bring in a big name elsewhere.
Such a decision has to be taken with care. That’s the thing about the consistency of a mid-price midfielder – just as we’re on dodgy ground when we’re berating its failure after three Gameweeks, we’ll only have ourselves to blame when it delivers on its promise out of the blue.
