Fantasy Football: The best future cheap striker for wildcarders

At the conclusion of the third gameweek, not many people would have thought that two of the three top point-scoring strikers would have come from the bargain bucket offerings.

Steven Naismith has already seen a 0.3m price hike after picking up 24 points at Everton, while Andreas Weimann’s 12 points against Hull means he is only two adrift of the Scot.

Naismith is now valued at 5.3m and owned by almost a quarter of players, while Weimann is priced at 5.6m and still largely under the radar with a five per cent ownership.

However, is it one of this pair that Fantasy Footballers using their wildcard over the international break should be looking to incorporate into their squads? Here are five options.

Naismith

It may now be a point of principle of some managers to avoid Naismith after missing the price hike, but this strategy would have backfired last season for similar thoughts regarding Aaron Ramsey.

The big question mark over Naismith is that one or two games of minimal impact may see him dropped from the first team for Samuel Eto’o. There is no way Everton will want to pay Eto’o a hefty sum in wages to be a bit-part substitute.

Weimann

The fixture list is the big reason that Weimann is best avoided, especially for the next month or so.

Aston Villa’s next five games are Liverpool (a), Arsenal (h), Chelsea (a), Man City (h) and Everton (a).

Connor Wickham

Steven Fletcher may be the main centre forward, but Wickham has had more shots than the Scot in all three of Sunderland’s Premier League games thus far, although the majority have been off target.

Three home games in the next four though make Wickham a tempting proposition.

Nikica Jelavic

Jelavic has now scored in Hull’s last two league games and looks nailed on to be their main striker for the foreseeable future.

The fixture list is not overly generous to Hull though, with Man City, Arsenal and Liverpool all to come in the next six.

Dwight Gayle

Gayle followed up a Capital One Cup hat-trick with a goal in the first minute of Neil Warnock’s first game in charge of Crystal Palace.

Wilfried Zaha’s arrival should bring added creativity, while Marouane Chamakh is expected to be out for a month with a hamstring injury. This should increase Gayle’s security of starts and makes him the most appealing option in this list at 5.4m.

All Odds and Markets are correct as of the date of publishing.

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