Perils of following your star

It's easy to read too much into a team's lineup and hard to quantify the effect of a single player on a match's result

One of the biggest arguments in soccer betting is whether individual players make a significant difference to a team's performances, and this weekend might be a good test of the cases for and against.

Consider the following list of players, and the effect their presence, or absence, might have on their teams' (or former teams') chances this weekend - Scott Parker, Jay-Jay Okocha, Louis Saha, Fredi Kanoute, Michael Owen, Yakubu, Damien Duff, John Terry and Thierry Henry.

Let's start with Parker and Saha, the two big-money movers during the transfer window in England. The general view is that Charlton and Fulham, respectively, will miss the two players given most credit for their impressive rise to the higher echelons of the Premiership this season. But how much did Charlton miss Parker when he was left out of their last game at Everton, where they won 1-0? (They drew the other league game Parker missed this season, also away).

Fulham have played two games without Saha - their 3-1 defeat at Newcastle and last week's FA Cup 1-1 at Everton, where they were pegged back by a last-minute goal. Hardly conclusive evidence either way.

Some players do stand out as the essence of their teams' success. Paul Scholes has been identified as a prime example before - Manchester United have won nine and drawn one of the 11 league games this season when he has been in the starting lineup; of the eight games he has missed altogether, they have lost two and drawn two. The value of other players might be overrated, however.