fantasy premier league new players to pick – Stoke forward Bojan Krkic

Fantasy Premier League, New player profiles

Bojan Krkic is a 5 foot 7 inch 23 year old winger/attacking midfielder who has moved from Barcelona to Stoke.  We look at the background to his transfer, his stats, fantasy premier league prospects as well as his initial fixtures

fantasy premier league new players to pick – Stoke forward Bojan Krkic

Background

Alot of transfers fill a definite need in the team and for the incoming player so on the face of it it’s hard to piece the puzzle here.  It almost sounds like an opportunistic transfer for both parties.  Stoke and Huges in particular are desperate to shake off the Pulis rugby team tag and signing a former Barcelona wonder kid helps that.  What for Bojan?   I can only think given some positional comments you’ll see below that he wanted to go to a team where he could dictate what he wanted out of it.

I wont go into huge detail about his background but here’s a few basics.  He was the youngest post war debutant for Barca at 17 beating Lionel Messi’s record.  He was capped by Spain at 18 and was named in the 2008 Euro’s squad but withdrew due to fatigue.  He never fulfilled his early promise at Barca and has had unsuccessful spells at Roma, Milan and Ajax before Barca decided to sell at what ended up a very cheap fee.

As you can imagine for someone bought up through the Barca youth ranks where he broke all sorts of records that he’s a strong technical player and has pace plus a box full of tricks.  A typical Stoke player then.

One thing is positive is that he will have Muinesa for company at Stoke as a former Barcelona player.  Possibly the biggest plus wfor Bojan’s motivation is that this simply has to be the last chance saloon.  If he should fail here it’s hard to know where to go to next.   Although the cynical may say that by going to Stoke if he fails he gives himself the excuse of  blaming the type of fottball, the weather etc as a way of going to Greece or Turkey.

He’s unhelpfully a forward in FPL although £5.5m does make him a viable forward for rotation in a 3-5-2 FPL formation.  Stoke rotate well with Swansea but whether you would want anyone from Swansea in the team apart from Siggy and then leave him on the bench at £6.0m  is questionable for me.

Hughes didn’t say anything inciteful but quite a few points of interest came from Bojan himself.

‘I still feel the same player as I did when I began at Barcelona and I feel I have more experience now that will hopefully help me here.’

‘I saw that the idea here is to get the ball down and play good football,’ he said. ‘There are many good players here who want to play with the ball at their feet. I think that will suit the style I want to play.
‘I know what I am capable of on the pitch. I like to get the ball on the ground, make good plays and move the ball around the pitch quickly at a good tempo. I like to build good relationships with other players too, which is important.’

‘I like to play as a striker or second striker. In recent seasons, I have played out wide but I do feel that my best position is in a more central role,’ he said.

‘I wanted to come here to play for a team on the up,’ he said.
‘The Premier League is somewhere I always wanted to play, so this is a good opportunity for me.
‘It is a very exciting league and one I am excited to play in. Mark also told me of the ambitions here and that was important to me.’

Here’s interestingly what his mate Muniesa said about English football.

‘I understand that the managers like the players to be stronger maybe than in Spain, and over the 12 months, I did a lot of gym work that has helped me.’

It’s interesting to see some negative views from a former Dutch star in the Eredivise about Bojan

“Phillip Cocu must have been very happy that Bojan joined Ajax rather than PSV. He simply lacks vision, is always complaining and comes across as an annoying person. There are more than enough better players around in the Eredivisie,” 

Here’s his stats:

Bojan Krkic stats    
 SeasonTeammatches goals/assists Mins per Goal/Assist 
 2013/14 Ajax244/4169 mins
 2012/13 Milan193/2149 mins
 2011/12 Roma337/1176 mins
 2010/11 Barcelona27  6/2 118 mins
 2009/10 Barcelona23 8/391 mins
 2008/09 Barcelona232/4122 mins
 2007/08 Barcelona3110/3113 mins
 
 Totals18040/19130 mins
   

In the Champions league he’s scored 5 goals and 2 assists in 34 games at a rate of a goal/assist every 192 minutes.  He’s played 1 full International for Spain with no goals resulting.

His Barca stats are reasonably good for a wide player and you can even excuse the Serie A stats for a wide player in a defensive league but his Ajax stats are appalling.  His Champions league stats are nothing flash either.  A comparison between Bony and Southampton’s Pelle as out and out forwards is unfair but Bony scored a goal a game ion the Dutch league and Pelle last year 23 goals in 28 games at a goal/assist every 86 minutes. Yes  at £8.5m and £7.5m respectively they are alot more expensive and didn’t play wide but thats some difference.  What is questionable is the lack of assists from Bojan for a wide player.

His cheap price mean that the stats for the Eredivise or Serie A don’t look that bad. While the Eredivise would be a much easier attacking league, Serie A is a more defensive league.   To compare to other players at the same price only Gayle of Palace had stats better:

Gayle goal/assist every 127 minutes, Berahino every 200 minutes, Agbonlahor every 221 minutes, Weiman every 265 minutes, Campbell every 276 minutes, Chamakh every 286 minutes

He also has the chance to improve these by potentially playing more centrally although we’ll cover that below

Fantasy Premier league prospects

Starting with position and gametime.  It’s hard enough to imagine Bojan at Stoke let alone a 5 foot 7 inch former Barcelona player leading the line as a striker.  Given his statements above it’s hard to imagine that he didn’t join Stoke on the basis that he would play more centrally though.  That would probably mean the central player in the attacking 3 of 4-2-3-1 or a support striker in 4-4-1-1.  It’s also hard to see that he didn’t join up without some guarantees over gametime and it’s impossible to think he wont start centrally in some way for GW1

That certainly would give him more scoring potential although his lack os assists and playing centrally does question how successful he would be.

The one thing he does have in his favour is fixtures.  The first 6 couldn’t be any better apart from going to Man City:

Aston Villa (H)
Hull (A)
Man City (A)
Leicester (H)
QPR (A)
Newcastle (H)

Long term it’s a trciky one.  At the risk of stereotyping the guy it’s hard to see how he will adjust to the amount of games without a winter break and the weather plus the fast pace of the premier league.  Last season very few new budget players to the premier league were successful initially.

Lats year Brady started well as a midfield cheapie and Arnautovic finished well but did any cheap striker?  Fraser Campbell had a burst but I can’t think of a cheap striker/AM/WM who was successful initially in the premier league last season.

Pre-season

Bojan has only played in 1  preseason game which couldn’t have been better from a personal point of view.  He scored in the 2 -1 loss to Schalke.  Interestingly he was played as a false 9 almost in that game and was very successful.  Leading the line despite what I said above.  I have to say though I still find it difficult to believe that will continue.  The next game is away to Freiburg next Saturday so it will be interesting to see how he lines up.

Summary

  • Once much hyped former Barca player
  • Small, technical and quick
  • £5.5m forward in FPL
  • Stats are ordinary but compare well for price
  • Gametime likely to be secure
  • Should be CAM or support striker
  • Started preseason well with goal in only game played

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