Nicolas Anelka became the Premier League's top scorer after his two goals against Blackburn on Sunday and his style of play is making him very hard to leave out of the Chelsea team, even with Didier Drogba lurking in the background.
On recent form he looks to me like he is playing some of the best football of his career
Lee Dixon on Anelka
Nicolas has never been a prolific goalscorer. His goals-per-game ratio is about one in three, which doesn't match up to the best strikers who score around one in every two, but with Anelka you get a different threat to Drogba.
Drogba tends to offer himself short to get the ball into feet. Anelka can do that too but his main threat is playing forward, lurking on the shoulders of the opposition centre-backs and making them worried about what is behind them.
That's important in the way Chelsea play and has an affect on the way their opposition set up against them.
Because Chelsea's midfield is strong and you have the likes of Deco in there, I think opposition teams try to flood the midfield to block them out, which is what Blackburn did in the first half at Ewood Park.
But it didn't work because Anelka's running off the ball, and the way he created space for other people, was fantastic.
Despite being 29 years old, teams are still scared of Anelka's pace and Chelsea take advantage of this by hitting quite a few balls over the top into the space behind the opposition defence.
Sunday's match saw Blackburn's back four pushed quite deep as they looked to give themselves an extra yard, and, in turn, created a lot of space in front of them.
So even though the ball was not always directly into Anelka, and the centre-backs were sometimes winning it, Chelsea's midfield were alive to where the ball might drop. That enabled the likes of Frank Lampard and Florent Malouda to pick it up quickly in dangerous positions.
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In short, Anelka allowed Chelsea to stretch Blackburn length-wise and they took full advantage.
Anelka's movement was great and he could have had a hat-trick in the first half - so he contributed in two ways. And now that he is scoring regularly I don't think you can leave him out of the team.
When I played with Nicolas at Arsenal he was very raw and young, naive in a way too. He was so quick - faster than Thierry Henry on his day - that sometimes he wouldn't use that to his advantage because he would run offside.
But his education has been at some of the best clubs in the world - Liverpool, Real Madrid, Fenerbahce, PSG - and he's a lot more of a well-rounded player now. The one thing he has to add to his game is consistency.
You're seeing glimpses of that now and he looks like he's got that confidence, dinking balls over the keeper as he did for his second goal against Blackburn.
Anelka needs supply and when he plays on the shoulder of the last defender with space behind him and looks back to see Deco on the ball, it must be a dream come true for him.
It is similar to when he played up front with Dennis Bergkamp in Arsenal's 1998 double-winning team - that was just a dream partnership.
Deco is a Bergkamp, Lampard is a great passer of the ball too, so he's got people who can find him.
When you have ball players like that Anelka doesn't have to think about his runs, he will just naturally spin into the holes and the ball will arrive. That's exactly how it was when Dennis played with him.
On recent form he looks to me like he is playing some of the best football of his career. I'm sure he's enjoying it too, and when you see Nicolas enjoying his football then you get the best out of him.
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