With Marko Arnautovic (£7.1) limping off in West Ham’s 3-1 win against Cardiff in the first half with a hamstring injury, a lot of FPL-managers will have to look elsewhere for points from their strikers over the festive fixtures. Manuel Pellegrini confirmed in his press conference on Thursday that Arnautovic looks to be out for the rest of the year.
I will focus on potential replacements for Arnautovic that is either in his price-bracket or below, as upgrading him to the likes of Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang (£11.2), Harry Kane (£12.5) or Alexandre Lacazette (£9.6) would mean a double transfer for many people, redistributing money from midfield or defence.
The options
The cherry-draped elephant in the room here has to be Callum Wilson (£7.0)… What can be said about Wilson that has not already been said? He just. Keeps. Getting. Points. He’s currently in my squad for the second time this season (why oh why did I ever transfer him out?) and over the course of 15 gameweeks he has managed eight goals and eight assists, surpassing Harry Kane (£12.5) by eight points and trailing Aubameyang by just one point at the top of the forward charts. As he’s already in 39.5% of the FPL-squads, even with the tough fixtures, it’s probably wise to stop trying to be clever and just get Wilson in.
If you already have Wilson or are trying to go the differential route, Joshua King (£6.3) could be an option. Probably still on pens, he’s scored five goals and assisted one in 12 gameweeks (missing out in GW 10-12 through injury). Sitting in a meagre 2.6% of the FPL squads he could be an option for either doubling up or going without Wilson. On balance though I’d say you probably want the real deal in Wilson until he drops off in form or gets injured. King will still score points, but likely the 0.7 million saved just isn’t worth it.
Wolverhampton’s main striker Raúl Jiménez (£6.0) is still a really, really cheap option. He’s got four goals and six assists so far this season in 15 games. Although he’s only played the full 90 minutes on eight occasions, he has so far started every game. One thing that is very much in favour of Jiménez is the “trickle-factor”, he’s only returned a double-digit haul once this season (against Tottenham) but he seems to find a way to get some sort of a return more often than not. This makes him valuable both as a starter and a rotation option/coming off the bench when the gameweeks start to pile up over the holidays.
The yin and yang striker of this season, Aleksandar Mitrovic (£6.6), has scored a healthy tally of seven goals and three assists so far this season. He’s blanked in eight out of 15 games though with a particularly barren spell between GW5-GW12, only netting one goal, one assist and creating frustrations for the FFS community. He also looked a bit disinterested in this period and it could simply be that he was not in a great frame of mind at the time. Since Claudio Ranieri took over the reins Mitrovic has two goals and one assist, in three games. He remains one yellow card away from a one-game suspension though.
The 35 year old Brighton striker Glenn Murray (£6.7) keeps doing what he does best, score goals. He’s currently on eight goals and zero assists for the season. Brighton’s fixtures are quite bad though, and he picked up a slight shoulder injury in the 3-1 win against Crystal Palace. Apparently, it is not looking terrible but he is still a doubt for the next game.
Newcastle United’s Salomón Rondón (£5.7) could be a cheeky option in the short term, facing off against Wolves, Huddersfield and Fulham in the next three gameweeks. After that it gets a lot worse though with Liverpool, Manchester United, Chelsea, Manchester City and Tottenham all in the space of seven gameweeks, with Watford and Cardiff sandwiched in between. If you want to roll the dice with Rondón it really is now or a lot later (if ever).
With Arnautovic out and West Ham’s fixtures still looking great one might be tempted to go for Lucas Pérez (£6.2) or Javier Hernandez (£6.2) in a straight swap. Both could come good but also come with their own set of benefits and drawbacks. Pérez has only played 157 minutes in total this season and Javier Hernandez rarely makes it past 70 minutes, only managing that once so far. Andy Carrol (£5.4) is also (for the moment at least) fit again and could challenge for a spot in the team, although realistically not for long. I’d say it’s probably better to look elsewhere, but if you really want one of them Pérez looked good and should see more minutes now.
Dirt-cheap Fulham striker Aboubakar Kamara (£4.3) scored his first goal of the season in GW15. Having only played two full games all season he remains a huge rotation risk, but Ranieri could potentially be looking to use Kamara to a larger extent than his predecessor. He’s more or less just there to sit at the last spot of your bench at this point in time though so if going for a formation change, it could work out.
Conclusion
I think it will be difficult to go wrong with either one of Callum Wilson or Raúl Jiménez over the holidays, both look fantastic options. For me Wilson just about edges it even with the fixtures, but I already have him so personally I will put my money where my mouth is and go for Jiménez as an Arnie-replacement. Mitrovic looks a decent option as well and could potentially be rejuvenated under Ranieri, but the yellow card issue is a problem I just don’t want to have right now. He could of course do a Diego Costa and walk the tightrope all the way to the new year, but I find that somewhat unlikely unless he’s really turned a corner attitude wise.
So who are you going for and why? Let me know in the comment section below!
Meltens
