Viking plunder!!

 

Well, damn - the Lanky Viking has gone and done it again. Erling Haaland has notched his fourth brace - and his fourth double-digit FPL points haul - of the season that is still only two months old,... even against one of the league's better defences,.... even when his team are really still not playing all that well.

I don't like to say that any player is absolutely a must-have. There are almost always alternative stategies you can pursue by redistributing your budget spend around other players, and the highest points-producers are not usually 'essential' merely because of that.

But right now, in this sort of form, yes, Haaland is a must-have.

And it's not just because of his impressive numbers, his impressive consistency. It's also because of the complete lack of any competition, among the forwards or in any other position.

Even with the additional points now available for cumulative 'defensive contributions', it has been an astonishingly low-scoring FPL season so far. 

Ordinarily, we'd hope to see almost all of our starters breaking 50 points by this stage, and at least 2 or 3 of our biggest performers having racked up 60 or 70 or more. Last year, Salah, Palmer, Saka, and Mbeumo as well as Haaland posted enormous numbers in the opening months of the season. This year, Haaland is the only forward to have registered more than 50 points (his current total of 83 points is in fact more than twice as good as his closest rivals); Semenyo is the only midfielder to have done so (his 70 point total is well behind Haaland, but again almost twice as good as all but a dozen or so of his midfield rivals, and 24 points clear of the second-best), and the only other players to have just squeaked over that threshold are a trio of defenders (who've happened to pick up untypical goals early on).

There was a busier and more turbulent transfer window than usual at the start of this season, and many of the new players have disrupted the tactics of their new clubs and/or not yet found their feet in the new setting. We've also seen rather a lot of early-season injury problems, with the absences of Palmer and Saka - expected to be two of the top FPL performers - particularly unfortunate. The early international breaks have perhaps been a bit more disruptive than usual too. And, what with one thing and another, nobody's form has settled down yet, no team has been consistently or convincingly good so far - and we've seen a lot of unexpected results.

And almost none of the most fancied FPL assets have produced very much at all so far. In fact, NO-ONE  - apart from Haaland and Semenyo - has posted really good FPL numbers yet.

While this continues to be the case, and particularly while the other expensive players - Salah, Palmer, Isak, Saka, Gyokeres - are out of action or not producing, there is absolutely no pressure on the FPL budget: there is no problem about affording Haaland, even at his enormous 14-million-plus valuation. I said at the start of the season that it was difficult to envisage either Haaland or Salah 'justifying' their very high price-tags this year; but I noted there that because of a lack of budget pressure early in the season - with fewer high-priced players than usual, and most of them not fit - it was possible to afford one of them (but not both); and Haaland has obviously been the one to go for.

While Haaland is thus eminently 'affordable', is producing 2 or 3 times as many points as any of his rivals, and no-one else in the game is producing big points at all at the moment - YES, he is a must-have.

But this is a freak circumstance. I can't recall seeing anything quite like it before. And I don't think this situation will last very long. Haaland's points production will surely slow down at some stage. And, even if it doesn't, when the likes of Palmer, Saka, and Isak finally hit form (yes, sorry - I have rather given up on Mo Salah's prospects for this season), there may still be questions to be answered about whether Haaland continues to be a 'must-have'.

Enjoy this remarkable run while you can, Haaland idolaters - he's unlikely to remain an indispensable pick for the whole season.