Having stuck my neck out and picked 10 players who I think will deliver above expectations this season, I'm now going to flip the idea round and name 10 potential 'busts' – highly regarded players who will cost you prime draft picks but I predict will disappoint for various reasons.
This is all a matter of value. Being the twentieth most valuable player in the game is great if you were picked up fiftieth, but it's a disappointment if you were taken first overall. I'm not saying you should avoid these players entirely, just that you should be wary of taking them too early, when the opportunity cost is highest.
NB. As with the 'sleepers' column, I'm going to avoid repeating what I wrote about players who have moved clubs in my transfer review last week.
Goalkeepers
David James, Portsmouth – Official Draft Rank 6, GK rank 1
Not that I think James will have a terrible year entirely, but from being the sixth best player in the game, the only way for him is down. Pompey's strength in defence came from stability last season, as their first choice back 4 played an average of 83% of all Premiership minutes, but with Glenn Johnson the only member of the quartet under 30, I don't see that repeating itself. James (himself 38) saw his consecutive games streak snapped at 164 with a calf strain late in the season, proving that he too is not invulnerable to the ageing process. He will also miss the strong interventions of Sulley Muntari in midfield.
Joe Hart, Manchester City – ODR 148, GK rank 9
Manchester City's keeper enjoyed a meteoric rise in 2007-08, climbing above Kasper Schmeichel and Andreas Isaakson to take the number one spot at Eastlands, then finishing in goal for England against Trinidad. He ended the year ranked ninth in the fantasy keeper list, and some may be tempted to bump him even higher on their draft boards. I'm sceptical, however.
I don't trust a data set of only 25 top flight games as a sample size. I'm always wary of young keepers, especially those prematurely touted as England's future number one (from Carson and Kirkland to Weaver and Wright, all have seen a painful comedown at some stage). Finally, I think City will find it hard to juggle domestic and European competition this season, and leave Hart under pressure.
Defenders
Martin Laursen, Aston Villa – ODR 19, DEF rank 4
Laursen's stock was inflated by six goals last season, second only to Joleon Lescott from defence. This all but doubled the previous tally from his entire twelve year professional career. There's no way that happens again. Laursen should inherit the captains armband from a departing or disciplined Gareth Barry, but will have to be at the height of his powers to marshall a Villa defence that has lost one full back (Olof Mellberg) to Juventus and the other (Wilfred Bouma) to a horrible ankle injury – over a domestic and UEFA Cup campaign. Do not forget either that this was the first season in his career in which the Dane was able to dodge injury himself.
Joleon Lescott, Everton – ODR 33, DEF rank 9
I expect another solid year from Everton's formidable defender, but I think he'll fall short of the very high fantasy value he earned last year, and could be overdrafted as a result. Last season Lescott started at left back more often than centre back, and that enabled him to make more tackles. This season I think David Moyes will aim to use Leighton Baines on the left hand side of his defence, if the former Wigan man can stay healthy, allowing Lescott to cover the central position and the versatile Phil Jagielka to move back into midfield, filling the gap left by the departing Lee Carsley.
Even if this is not the case, much of Lescott's value last term was tied up in his almost 100% time on the pitch, and his eight goals, which came from only ten attempts on target – an amazing ratio which must surely regress.
Gary Neville, Manchester United – ODR 64, DEF rank 21
Managers who spend a high pick on 'Red Devil' Neville will be picking the memory of what he was from 1998-2006, when he was a rock for club and country. He's now 33, and has managed only 9 minutes of competitive action in nearly 18 months. He'll also have to win back his place from Wes Brown.
Midfielders
Steed Malbranque, Sunderland – ODR 16, MID rank 5
Malbranque enjoyed a career year with Spurs last season, finishing high in the fans' player of the year vote – and promptly moved on to Sunderland, who made an offer too good for the London club to refuse. This move came too late for mention of Steed in the transfers column, so I'll say here what I would otherwise have done there.
Malbranque was used on the left side of midfield at Tottenham, but dropped deep and inside when the lillywhites were defending, and made a huge number of tackles which give him most of his fantasy value. With Andy Reid covering the left flank for Sunderland, I think Malbranque plays as the central link between midfield and attack, and his tackle count will decrease as a result. He will not have the same talent ahead of him as Dimitar Berbatov and Robbie Keane either, and I think this too will hurt his value.
Gareth Barry, Aston Villa – ODR 26, MID rank 9
There have just been too many bitter words and too much protracted wrangling involving Barry this summer for me not to have some concern about his on-field performance in the coming year. I'm not suggesting he disappears without trace – Fabio Capello's apparently preferred holding midfield option has far too much class to do that – but I could see a bit of a downturn in output.
Barry also does not see much of the ball for a supposedly dominant central midfielder, believe it or not. Cesc Fabregas had the ball on an average of around 76 occasions a game last season, Frank Lampard about 65, Steven Gerrard about 56 – Barry only around 40 times per 90 minutes. That puts more pressure on his creativity when he does get possession.
Forwards
Emmanuel Adebayor, Arsenal – ODR 3, FW rank 2
Sometimes you have to stick your neck out. Adebayor had a brilliant last season in fantasy terms; his 24 goals augmented by a fine passing game and work rate which saw him at the heart of much of Arsenal's attacking play, and not just poaching goals. There's no reason to think any of that will disappear.
However, that goal total concerns me. Since he joined Arsenal in January 2006, Adebayor's shooting accuracy has been very steady around 50%. In those first two seasons, his scoring rate (goals per shot) was around 16%, a bit under what you'd expect from a striker with 50% accuracy. However, last season – without being supported by a greater on-target percentage, it rocketed over 23%, and I don't believe it will stay so high. Combine this with a decline in his very large number of chances, which I think will come as Arsene Wenger's other attacking options mature, and I see Adebayor dropping back into the top scorer pack on around 16 goals. Still a nice return, but not so good on a third overall pick.
Benjani Mwaruwari, Manchester City – ODR 20, FW rank 8
Benjani netted 15 times last season, between spells at Fratton Park and Eastlands, but I can't see him repeating the trick. As I discussed when talking about draft strategy [***LINK***], the top scorers list is enormously changeable year-on-year, and I don't expect to see the Zimbabwean featuring prominently again come next May.
He turns 30 before the start of the season, and all but three of his goals last year came before his January move North. Finally, he sits in the bottom 20% of forwards for touches per minute, which means that when the goals aren't flowing, there's little value to be had here.
Didier Drogba, Chelsea – ODR 278, FW rank 56
It seems odd for a player ranked as low as this last season to be a bust candidate, but I am sure Drogba will be over-drafted. Indeed, the 36 year-old Ivorian appeared in the second round of the Row ZZ mock draft last week. The optimistic manager remembers Drogba's 33 goal season in 2006-07, and writes off last year as a blip brought about by injury and the disruption of an African Cup campaign mid-season. I think it was 06-07 that was the oddity.
Of those 33 goals, only 20 came in the league - Drogba has only 40 goals in 109 Premier League appearances. The only other season ever in which he broke the seventeen goal barrier (in all competitions, mind!) came in 2003-04 with Marseille. He is now the wrong side of 30 years old, which makes me think those knocks last season may not have been coincidence, and is already carrying an injury that will rule him out of the start of the season. His rate of goals per shot has never broken a pedestrian 17% in English football – that 20 goal tally was the product of 128 attempts: by way of comparison, Ronaldo's 31 last season came from 131.
All of this is before you consider the slight possibility that he may not remain in the league beyond the close of the transfer window. I implore you – let someone else be the manager who spends a high pick on Drogba.
By Sandy King
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