The Fantasy Football Zombie - you've been burned by picking a player in the past, and now you can't get over that sense of betrayal to put them back in your starting lineup, despite the fact that they could help your team this season.
Plenty of players go through a dip in form, and while it dents their confidence and can force the team around them to carry them through it, there's a much more important thing to consider: how it affects you and your fantasy football team.
Last season, a player might have been dead to you; perhaps they were in and out of their club's starting lineup or they were a hotshot signing that proved to be more of a crockpot, and you persisted with them for just too long. Now you're once bitten, twice shy as you see them rise from the dead and start winning points again, and too many points to be a fluke - they are a Fantasy Zombie.
In the same way as you would look at a former lover's Facebook page in your weaker moments only to see that their life seems much better without you, it hurts to try and go back down that road. While your life coach T. Swift advises not going there again, here are a few players that you should consider this season even if they have burned you in the past.
Bojan Krkic is a good example. Through injury and struggling to adapt to English football, he spent months in and out of the side, and missed a good chunk of the start of this season too.
However, Stoke look to have really changed their style in the way that manager Mark Hughes wants, and Bojan is a big part of that. He has been brilliant in the biggest matches so far this season against Manchester City and Manchester United, proving he likes the big stage, and with 20 points in his last two games, he's great value at £5.1 million.
Sticking with Stoke, Glen Johnson (£5.2 million) is once again relevant, having been involved in Liverpool's disastrous season last year. He didn't have the manager's confidence, fans were on his back and he looked a broken man. Now, he's part of a team that has built on their solid defence, picking up clean sheets along the way, while also grabbing a few assists here and there.
He has more points already than he did in the entirety of last season, and with games against West Brom and Norwich, as well as a Liverpool side struggling to find goals, there may be no better time to get him in the side.
Image: Nigel French / EMPICS Sport
After a great start to life in the Premier League, Jan Verthongen (£5.5million) has been a peripheral fantasy figure in the last two years, including a prolonged period where he clearly wanted away from North London. In a revitalised side under Mauricio Pochettino however, he's back in the frame: Spurs have kept three clean sheets in their last five games, and already have as many at this stage as they did all of last season. He can prove a goalscoring threat too, as he showed in his first season in the league, and if he rediscovers that form, he'll be worth his weight in go(a)ld.
Finally, Marc Albrighton (£7.7 million) has been bounced around a bit: having been on the fringes of the Aston Villa squad, and a bit part player last year in a struggling team, he's a fixture for high-flying Leicester this season, having played in every game them so far.
He has more minutes played and points earned already than he did all of last season, and has been an unheralded but important cog in the Foxes' rise, with seven assists to his name too.
Image: Nigel French / PA Archive/PA Images
Gameweek 19 Picks
We've barely had time to blink and another gameweek is upon us. Without time to digest all the new information from Stephen’s Day, we must now brace ourselves for what will, undoubtedly, be a gameweek of rotation and frustration.
The same golden rule applies, then. Make sure you’ve got appearance points at the very least ready to come off your bench. The good news is that, fixtures-wise, it’s a very straightforward gameweek.
Firstly, the two most off-putting outfits in the league (Man United and Chelsea) clash tonight, which gives us a perfect excuse to avoid their players almost entirely.
Furthermore, our precious City gems will have an extra day’s rest as they don’t play until tomorrow night against a seemingly-mortal Leicester side. If Saturday didn’t provide enough warning, Kevin de Bruyne (10.8) is probably the most explosive midfielder available to us right now and should be considered captain material every other week.
This is not one of those weeks, though. His road stats can barely hold a candle to his home numbers and a trip to the King Power merits inclusion in your starting XI, but probably not the armband.
Image: Alastair Grant / AP/Press Association Images
For that, Mesut Ozil (£9.9 million) looks the ultimate option. Assuming the mauling at Southampton was just a bizarre blip, Arsenal assets look poised to wreak havoc this evening as Bournemouth come to the Emirates.
Romelu Lukaku (£9.3 million) and Odion Ighalo (£6.2 million) are also in front of their own fans today and the former in particular should also come into the captain’s discussion.
Stephen’s Day tip Ashley Williams (£4.8 million) returned the goods with a second clean sheet in a row and the Welsh outfit’s schedule suggests they are worth investment. Angel Rangel (£4.1 million) could turn out to be a gem of a bargain if he continues to play games.
Image: Nigel French / PA Archive/PA Images
However, it is their opponents this week, Crystal Palace, who merit close defensive attention. Wayne Hennessy (£4.1 million) between the sticks continues to be cheapest route into that area of their side.
West Ham are in a similar boat. After three consecutive clean sheets, it was odd that Aston Villa would end their defensive returns, but a home clash with Southampton offers a perfect chance for Slaven Bilic’s charges to return to their sturdy ways. Annoyingly, both Cresswell and Tomkins are yellow-flagged at the time of writing, so Angelo Ogbonna (£4.9 million) is oddly the safest short-term fix. Keep an eye on Carl Jenkinson (£5.0 million), though, as he should be fixture of the side once more, sooner rather than later.
And finally, here’s a groan-inducing suggestion: Christian Benteke (£8.2 million). Sure, there’s no reason to believe that he’s nailed on to start (despite being the only fit Liverpool striker right now other than Jerome Sinclair), but in a trip to struggling Sunderland on the back of a performance where he really should have scored twice, you could do a lot worse than the Liverpool man.
Jamie Vardy owners aplenty may be looking for a way out of that commitment, and the Belgian now has the opportunity to make his way into the Liverpool scoring ranks.
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