1. Feed the Yak- Along with Danny Graham and Grant Holt, Yakubu is one of the top three value-for-money forwards in the Fantasy Premier League. Available at £5.9 million, he has scored more league goals than either Balotelli or Dzeko. He is an automatic starter at Blackburn and a consistent penalty-taker. Last week, his headed goal sealed a 2-0 win over Sunderland, though he came up blank this weekend on an emotional day at the Reebok. Decent bet.
  1. Liverpool Disaster– After a resounding 3-0 win over Everton, Liverpool have lost their last two Premier League games, succumbing to QPR and, bizarrely, Wigan. Players like Steven Gerrard, Charlie Adam and Luis Suarez are popular fantasy buys, but, given Liverpool’s recent struggles, they should be avoided.

I trust your judgment enough not to insert more than a solitary sentence here about the danger of jumping on the Gary Caldwell bandwagon. Enticed by one match day of brilliance, fantasy football managers too often throw money at notoriously spotty performers

  1. Peter Crouch is good at volleys– A few weeks back, I wrote about the potential success of a qualitative Fantasy Premier League – a point-earning system based on subjective performance ratings, crazy goal celebrations and off-field antics. Of course, this league will never come into being, but thinking about it beats counting sheep. One man who would have received top marks in such a league this week is Peter Crouch, who scored arguably the goal of the season against Manchester City on Saturday. Cue, ridiculous babble like “If Zlatan had scored it, we would be talking about if for years”. If Zlatan had scored it, nobody would care. We’re used to his brilliance; it hardly means anything anymore.

Since scorer was indeed Peter Crouch, he, and not Zlatan, deserves a fantasy plug. Crouch has earned 103 points this season, three times as many as fellow forward Cameron Jerome. Crouch is big and supposedly enjoys nachos. Go for it.

  1. Viva Ronaldo- As you may or may not be aware, Cristiano Ronaldo scored his 100th  La Liga goal on Saturday. He reached the mark in just 92 games, a record that Lionel Messi will never match. HA!

My interest piqued, I looked for a list of all the active Premier League players with 100 or more league goals. Here it is: Frank Lampard, Wayne Rooney, Emile Heskey, Jermain Defoe, Ryan Giggs, Paul Scholes, Darren Bent and Didier Drogba. Of those players, only Rooney has been in decent goal scoring form this season – all the others are either injured, short on confidence or stuck on the bench. How Heskey scored 100 goals I do not know. Please, don’t sign him.

  1. Inconsistent Theo- Theo Walcott is the Premier League’s most frustrating player. He’s in superb form at the moment, which means he’ll probably be in dire form by the end of the season. He scored a brilliant goal on Saturday, and is therefore sure to miss a sitter next weekend. At 9.1 million, though, Walcott is priced just right. Worth a risk. Maybe.

Read more by David Yaffe-Bellany at In For The Hat Trick and follow him on Twitter @INFTH.