Players of the Year

 

Following on from my survey last week of how the 2024-25 season panned out in FPL, here is a rundown of the most valuable player picks in the game this year.

Jordan Pickford was obviously a strong choice between the sticks for the season, given his propensity for pulling off large numbers of saves when his team are getting pummelled, but with his defence being solid enough to help him keep a fair few clean sheets as well; and given the fact that he ended last season well out in front in the FPL goalkeeper rankings. However, with his being priced at 5.0 million, one might have preferred to go for two 4.5 options instead (at least at first, to save a bit of money in the initial squad) - or to have switched to that, when Everton started the season so poorly. Apart from huge hauls against Newcastle (of course!) and West Ham, he only really started hitting form around a third of the way through the season. Matz Sels and Dean Henderson were always the better bets for me (though Henderson and Palace became significantly stronger in the second half of the season); and indeed, Sels was only edged out of top spot by Pickford in the final week, so I would still go for the Nottingham Forest man as the keeper of the season - more consistent in his returns than Pickford, and more keenly priced.

Kepa and Areola and Sanchez also looked promising in spells, but you don't really want to be swapping keepers around too much. Raya never quite convinced for me; he never got higher than 3rd in the goalie rankings, I don't think, and was often outside the Top 5. Brentford's Mark Flekken - somewhat surprisingly! - managed to be in overall contention as well, just creeping into the Top 5 goalkeepers in the latter part of the season; largely down to the huge number of saves his defensively frail side needed him to make, which made up for a rather paltry total of just 7 clean sheets. I'm always wary of taking a keeper from a defensively weak team, though: that saves-for-clean-sheets trade-off is extremely risky! And Flekken is fundamentally not a very good keeper; although significantly improved this year (he doesn't have a massive negative 'delta' on his GC/xGC, a surplus of goals conceded over the 'expected' figure, as he did the previous year; but it's still not a positive number, which is what you're looking for from a good keeper), he's still been at fault, I think, for a lot of the goals Brentford have let in.

Trent Alexander-Arnold missed a spell with injury, and was rotated with Conor Bradley a few times over the closing month or so; both entirely predictable dents in his season total, and factors which had always argued against him being an ironclad season-long hold. Early in the season, it had looked as if he might just about justify his outrageous 7.0-million starting price-tag; but he was only ever just on the cusp of doing so, never absolutely nailing it; Slot just wasn't using him in the advanced overlapping role he'd need to get close to the double-digit assists he'd recorded in a few of his highest-scoring seasons. As it was, he came up just shy of 150 points for the season, which would barely justify a 6.0-million asking price, let alone 7.0 million. As with Haaland, though, Trent fans may have benefitted from a hot start (41 points from the first 7 games); if they'd switched to other premium options after that, they would have had an advantage over the season.

Josko Gvardiol ended up in top spot among the defenders (apparently confounding my eve-of-season view that he was over-hyped). However, he only snuck into 1st place in the final weeks of the season, after claiming 6 clean sheets in his last 9 games - somewhat fortuitously, I felt, since City still looked very shakey at the back in these games, despite facing mostly quite weak opponents. He only managed just over 150 points, which is not a great return for 6.0-million-pound defender (and not very much ahead of a bunch of 4.5 options); and he only edged Trent Alexander-Arnold and Gabriel out of the lead because he was almost ever-present throughout the season (which cannot have been expected at the start of the year, since Pep tends to rotate heavily among his defenders), while his two leading rivals both missed a lot of games. I maintain he was a risky and unpromising pick - at that price-point - at the beginning of the season, but was probably worth getting in from around the mid-point onwards, once City started to rally from their slump a little (he got 89 points in the last 20 games - which is value for the price-tag). 

The much fancied Pedro Porro (nearly 30% ownership at the start of the season, and it soared even higher in the following few weeks after he got off to a flyer by claiming a goal in the opening match against Leicester) ultimately disappointed the most among the initially popular defensive picks. He missed several games with injuries, so a haul of 2 goals and 6 assists was pretty good from a limited number of starts; but his owners had greedily - unrealistically - been expecting a lot more from him. And of course, despite quite a good attacking return from him, Spurs's defensive form completely fell apart, and he came up shy of a ton for the season.

My observation from back in October that we didn't seem likely to see any really big returns from defenders this year proved accurate. The tweak in the BPS, penalising defenders and keepers more heavily for goals conceded, makes it significantly harder for them to win bonus points. Arsenal's defensive form of last season was a bit of a freak; neither they nor anyone else could get anywhere near that number of clean sheets again. And there has been a sharp shift in EPL game tactics away from the type of full-back who pushes far foward all the time, linking up with the wide forward to create overlaps, pushing to the byline to provide crosses or cutbacks; we just don't see that level of attacking contribution from anyone at the moment. And that means that it must be rather questionable whether premium defenders are worth it any more. You really want to get something like 160 points from a 6.0-million-pound defender, at least 170 or 180 from one who costs any more than that - and this season, no-one got close to that. (At least, in recent times, that has been the calculus. We might have to revise our expectations downwards, if this trend persists. At least there was NO BUDGET PRESSURE this season, once the Haaland issue was closed, so we could afford to pay a little over-the-odds for the top-scoring defenders, even though they weren't giving great value-for-money.)

For me, Gabriel was the outstanding defensive pick of the year, until that hamstring injury unfortunately wiped him out for the last 9 games (he was well ahead of Gvardiol at that point). Of course, his Arsenal central defensive partner Wiliam Saliba wasn't too far behind (although he was looking a little less imperious, a little more fallible than in the previous two seasons); but Gabriel enjoyed a clear edge by virtue of being the main aerial target-man at set-pieces, which are such a key source of goals for the club. Ben White and Jurrien Timber might have out-performed either of them, if injuries and rotations hadn't so limited their minutes; next season, they might perhaps be the more tempting choices from the Arsenal defence.

Nottingham Forest's excellent defensive form was the revelation of the season. Their towering Serbian centre-back Nikola Milenkovic, ended up being the most popular FPL selection from them, with ownership up around 20% for a while. As with Gabriel, his aerial threat at set-pieces gave him a slight edge over his colleagues, and he produced 5 goals over the season. However, Murillo and Ola Aina also produced very good points, despite a few short injury absences; and Neco Williams also shows strong potential (although it's hard to be confident who will start at left-back, with Alex Moreno and Harry Toffolo offering some stiff competition for the place).

Daniel Munoz, Milos Kerkez, Antonee Robinson, and Rayan Ait-Nouri are the only full-backs who do still offer good prospects of attacking returns, but the latter two had fairly disappointing seasons: Robinson's output dropped off a cliff from January, while Ait-Nouri's only intermittently began to improve after the mid-season change of manager at Wolves. Hall and Livramento at Newcastle also showed some promise, as did Mykolenko at Everton, and in the latter part of the season, Wan-Bissaka at West Ham. However, none of these began to approach the kind of points totals we've seen in the recent past from Kieran Trippier, Trent Alexander-Arnold, Joao Cancelo - or even Ben White last year.

In the absence of much attacking output from defenders this year, the dependable Virgil Van Dijk was once again among the top performers - finishing narrowly ahead of Munoz and Kerkez. However, for most of the season, his partner Ibrahima Konate was offering the same points for less money - so, I don't think Virgil was ever an ideal, much less 'essential' pick.

Bournemouth's Dean Huijsen was the 'pleasant surprise' of the season: one of the oustanding young defensive talents to emerge in recent years. He only attained a regular start when Marcos Senesi got injured at the start of December, but made an immediate impression, and racked up a fairly impressive (for a defender...) average of 4 points per start for the rest of the season, despite Bournemouth's indifferent form in the latter stages. His ownership in FPL eventually climbed above 5% - despite Kerkez (and Zabarnyi and Kepa) claiming most people's attention as a prime defensive pick from his club. It's such a pity that he's been poached by Real Madrid already; but perhaps we'll see him return to the Premier League one day.

Mo Salah, of course, is a no-contest for the 'most valuable player' of the year, in any position; despite his advancing years, and the uncertainties of bedding in a new manager at Liverpool, he smashed his own record for the most FPL points in a season, and pulled out a lead of more than 100 over the next best. Bryan Mbeumo was a gallant runner-up, amply confirming and building upon the promise he'd shown in the previous two seasons. He did suffer one mini-blip from around the start of November, when Brentford dropped 8 points in 5 games, and Mbeumo recorded only 1 assist, and did suddenly look strangely out of sorts (it seemed possible that he was not adapting well to sharing goalscoring duties with just-back-from-injury Yoane Wissa - but, if that was ever the case, they soon developed a good understanding and were both producing alongside each other throughout the second half of the season); I - like many others - was prompted to cut him loose for a while, as he was facing a tricky turn in the fixtures as well; but, of course, he then found his scoring boots again and notched goals against Newcastle, Chelsea, and Arsenal in December. However, these were about the only two midfielders that you could 'set-and-forget' this year.

Jarrod Bowen was arguably the third, producing one of his best and most consistent seasons (apart from a four-game spell he missed with a cracked bone in his foot, he never 'blanked' more than once or twice in a row all season, and ended up with 6 double-digit hauls) - despite the handicap of playing for a relegation-worthy West Ham side. However, all the other most fancied midfield prospects frustrated and disappointed to some extent. 

Cole Palmer, increasingly vilified by the FPL hordes later in the season, had started off the new campaign just as devastatingly as he'd played most of the previous year; he was in fact running the great Mo Salah very close through the early months of the campaign (slightly ahead of him at the end of Gameweek 6!!), and was looking on course for a 300-point season. And if Chelsea had been awarded something like the same number of penalties as last year, rather than fewer than half as many (and they really were shockingly unlucky in this, especially early in the season: in almost every game, they seemed to be having one or two very strong shouts for a spot-kick inexplicaby ignored by both the referee and VAR), he would probably still have equalled his last year's total of 244, despite the dramatic fall-off in the second half of his season. I maintained that he was still playing extremely well, but without the steel of Lavia in the middle, and with no fit forwards to spearhead their attack, Chelsea began to look increasingly clueless from early December onwards. Despite the huge drop-off in his returns from that point on, Palmer was still the 3rd biggest FPL points-scorer of the season. So, he was certainly worth having - indeed, essential, I would have said - from the start of the season; and arguably, perhaps, as a season-long hold, since with players of that rare calibre, there's always a chance they'll come up with a big haul from time to time, however badly their team is playing. Despite Chelsea's faltering form, Palmer recorded goals against Fulham, Palace, and Bournemouth around the turn of the year. With the benefit of hindsight, you can say that it would have been best to jettison him soon after Gameweek 20; but it was difficult - it would indeed have been over-hasty and rash - to make such a call at the time.

As so often, when an exceptional player has his FPL productivity start to dry up, it's very difficult to judge when to let them go. There was an odd combination of circumstances - Palmer occasionally still producing an outstanding individual performance that rekindled hope in faithful owners, Chelsea occasionally showing hints of a general improvement, so many of the likely alternatives to Palmer getting injured (Saka, Amad, Bowen, Son), a promising turn in the club's fixtures just ahead, etc. - that encouraged me to stick with him longer than I probably should have. But as I said, a player like him can come good again at any moment; unless there's a really compelling alternative pick you can swap him out for, you might as well just continue gambling on him. This time, that gamble ultimately didn't pay off; but in another season - perhaps with Palmer, perhaps with another top player - it might.

None of the other top prospects quite came up with the goods this year, not with sufficient consistency, or over any extended period, anyway. Bukayo Saka looked as if he might have an extraordinary season, bringing up his ton in just 14 games (one of which he'd had to sit out with a slight knock); but soon afterwards, he was wiped out for much of the season with a serious hamstring tear. Although he surprised us by getting fit again in time for the last two months of the campaign, he got very rationed minutes in that comeback spell and, apart from a fairytale goal in his return appearance, failed to have any further FPL impact.

Ebere Eze managed to stay fit for most of the year, and almost invariably looked Palace's best player - but didn't have much to show for that for long stretches of the season. That unjustly disallowed goal that he put straight in from a free-kick at the start of the season really set the tone; he seemed to be having near-misses - battering a post, drifting a delicate curler inches wide, pulling a top-drawer save out of the keeper - in very nearly every game: if even one of those had gone in, it might have galvanized him into a 200-point season. I'm sure he's got that in him. This time, though, you probably didn't want to think of bringing him in until the last couple of months of the season.

Kaoru Mitoma is another player who strikes me as particularly 'unlucky' - the kind of player who's always setting up potential assists that his teammates then squander, or who has actual assists denied him because a lunging defender got a toe-end on his deft cutback before it reached the Brighton forward. And of course, it doesn't help that his Brighton team were exhibiting even more yo-yo form than usual this year. However, he still managed 10 goals in all, including the 'Goal of the Season' - so, not too shabby. Unfortunately, he just never managed a consistent enough run of form to make him a really attractive FPL acquisition this year. If you happened to be on him when he managed 4 big hauls in 6 games in January/February, you were very fortunate.

The (mis)fortunes of Luis Diaz also regularly break my heart. I think he's been Liverpool's best player, after Salah, over the past few years; but the cruellest combinations of circumstances always contrive to deny him the FPL points that would fully reflect that. This year, he didn't start 10 games, was often subbed off with 15 or 20 minutes left in those he did start (and once, shy of the hour mark!), and was most often played through the middle rather than in his preferred left-flank role. Yet he still managed 13 goals and 7 assists over the season, and was neck-and-neck with Bowen for the 4th best midfielder slot!! Imagine what he could achieve if Slot started him every week, in his best position.

Diogo Jota is arguably even more ill-starred. He made quite a promising start with Liverpool this time, racking up 34 points in in the first 7 games (effectively only 5 games, as he had to come off early against Forest, and then missed the following match against Bournemouth). However, he then - inevitably - picked up a medium-term injury, and when he came back was mostly used as a sub, or withdrawn quite early when he did start.

Antoine Semenyo is a rather surprising appearance at 7th position in the midfield rankings; but a huge haul for his brace against Leicester on the last day catapulted him several places up the chart. It's also a measure of how disappointing the output from the midfield position was in FPL overall this season: ordinarily, you'd expect perhaps 10 or 12 players to be scoring in the 170-190 kind of range, but this season only 3 did.  I'd fancied Semenyo's prospects before the season kicked off, as he'd looked very lively at the end of the previous campaign, and it did seem he might inherit Solanke's mantle as Bournemouth's main goalscorer. However, it soon became apparent that that role was more likely to fall to Dango Ouattara; and then they brought in a new specialist striker in Evanilson; and then Kluivert had a breakout season, largely stealing everyone else's thunder at the club, at least for a while. Semenyo had a few other nice hauls as well, but they were very spread out over the season, and he rarely looked like posing any really consistent threat. From the beginning of February, he went on an 8-game run that yielded only 2 assists; when I was still seeing him in a lot of people's sides in March, I thought there was something very odd going on.... He was never really the best attacking pick from Bournemouth at any stage of the season; and by then, when Bournemouth's team form was faltering badly in the closing third of the season, none of them were worth having any more.

Bruno Fernandes is, of course, one of the best players in the Premier League; but, unfortunately, he plays for one of the worst teams - which seriously calls into doubt how far you can ever rely on him to be a consistent FPL producer. He did have a few very nice little runs this year: back-to-back double-digits in Gameweeks 10 and 11, closely followed by three 9-pointers in four games across the end of November and the beginning of December; and then another little spurt of 46 points in just 4 games from mid-February. But also.... a lot of barren spells, alas. If you happened to have him during one of those hot streaks, you were lucky; but neither he nor United were producing regularly enough to make him a good bet for an extended hold in your squad (unless there just weren't any other decent midfield prospects available - which might have happened once or twice this year!).

I mentioned in my earlier post on the overall course of the season that many FPL managers had gone for Morgan Rogers in the 5th midfield spot early on (and mainly just because he was cheap, rather than because they knew anything about him), and were sufficiently impressed to hang on to him all season. I feel that was a mistake - an error of complacency or apathy. Not that I have anything against Rogers; in fact, I'm one of his biggest fans in the real world; but in the sphere of FPL, he just wasn't quite a regular enough producer to justify the long-term hold (and that was mostly down to Villa's problems with consistency, rather than any failing on his part). He only managed decent back-to-back hauls once all season. And he suffered a particularly bad lull from January onwards, missing the New Year game against Leicester, and then only managing a solitary assist in his next 8 appearances. Now, it was certainly an outstanding debut season, and (in this year when so many top midfielders have disappointed...) he wound up as FPL's 14th best player (and 8th best midfielder). However, he was edged out of a higher spot by the late lunge from Semenyo, while the likes of Murphy, Kluivert and Iwobi were a negligible distance behind; so, he wasn't even clearly the best of the ultra-low-budget midfield options this year. 

And the fact is, the end-season standings don't always count for that much. Even if you correctly guessed who the top 15 performers for the year were going to be way back last August, and could afford them all in your initial squad, they probably wouldn't have given you anywhere near a league-topping score if you'd stuck by them all year. There are very few players who are consistent enough to rely upon for the whole season. All the other positions. you have to rotate furiously - to try to keep finding the most in-form picks for the moment. That was particularly true in the cheaper midfield slots this year - because these were the players producing the most (very often not just the best points-per-pound return, but the highest absolute points), but also they were the players who were shifting in and out of peak form most rapidly. Although Morgan Rogers might have looked like the best budget midfield pick overall, there were almost always at least 2 or 3 others in the 5-to-6-million price category who were outperforming him over a short run of games: Emile Smith Rowe at the beginning of the year, and then his teammate Alex Iwobi (or, for very brief spells, perhaps even Harry Wilson or Adama Traore!), Dwight McNeil, Justin Kluivert, Georginho Rutter, Enzo Fernandez, Amad Diallo, Julio Enciso, Jacob Murphy, Harvey Barnes, Anthony Elanga, Kevin Schade. Spotting the emerging form of guys like these, and getting on them - and then getting off them again! - quickly was especially crucial this season.

Strange things were happening up-front this year. For a long time now, maybe a decade or so, the forward selection has been very limited. We've usually had just one or two really outstanding performers - Vardy, Kane, Haaland - with few if any of the other contenders getting anywhere near to their eminence. But this year, we have 2 forwards in the Top 5 overall FPL points producers,.... and 6 in the Top 11! That is unheard-of - at least as far back as I can remember. Partly, of course, it's down to the disappointing performances or injury absences of so many top midfielders this year; but also, it's very rare to have that many forwards all doing that well.

Chris Wood, for me, was the pick-of-the-crop this year. Although he slipped behind Isak in the overall points totals, he was often the more consistent points producer through the first two-thirds of the season, his finishing was uncannily efficient (beating his xG by nearly 50%?! WTF???), with him again and again claiming a goal from just two or three half-chances in a game, he was a lot cheaper than Isak, and he was a much more unexpected success story of the season. His form did falter from around mid-February, though, with two or three games missed with a knock he picked up on international duty, and only 2 more goals during that closing phase of the season. Almost no-one - apart from Salah and Mbeumo - was a season-long hold this year!

Alexander Isak confirmed his enormous potential in his second full season, managing to stay clear of major injuries this year, and looking very much like the most complete forward in the league. He started a little sluggishly, perhaps carrying an injury of some sort from the summer - managing only a couple of returns in his first six outings, and then missing a couple of games with a 'broken toe'. After that, he began to settle into a groove, and never went more than two starts without a goal for the rest of the season. I worry that the FPL Gnomes are going to make him stupidly expensive next year. It wouldn't be that unreasonable, as he is pretty much on Haaland's level; but it would spoil our fun to have two of the top attacking talents rendered unaffordable.

Matheus Cunha was the other outstanding forward of the year, posting very decent numbers even with such a weak side as Wolves (deep in the relegation mire for the first half of the year), and often manifesting an other-worldly brilliance in his approach play as well as his finishing. His temperament is the one big problem, of course; if he hadn't got himself a couple of extended suspensions (and he was really fortunate that they weren't longer, especially the one for assaulting the Ipswich steward), he probably would have finished at least 3rd in the forward rankings, and might have challenged Isak for the top spot.

But as it was, Ollie Watkins and Yoane Wissa were the best of the rest this time. Wissa was the breakout star among the forwards this year (well, assuming that we allow that we've known about Chris Wood's potential for the best part of a decade, even if he hasn't often realised it): apart from a few games missed with an injury from the end of September, and a brief goalscoring lull in January/February, he has been remarkably consistent in his output throughout the year. Watkins had a bit more of an up-and-down year: he too looked to be troubled by some sort of fitness issue to begin with, then there were rumours that he was out of favour with Emery (perhaps because he was angling for a move away from the club at the end of the season?), and pundits began to muse that he might - perhaps should - lose his start to the very sharp-looking Jhon Duran, and later to loanee Marcus Rashford. It didn't help that Villa were struggling with the unfamiliar burden of Champions League football, and often weary and woefully inconsistent in the League, especially in the first half of the season. But class will out, and Ollie ended up having another pretty solid season; he looks to be forming a particularly productive rapport with Morgan Rogers, and it's notable that although his goal tally wasn't that great this year, he supported it with an impressive 8 assists.

Erling Haaland, of course, presented the great conundrum for us at the start of the season, when FPL priced him at an outrageous 15.0 million pounds. At that cost, the only sensible decision, really, was to try to go without him in your initial squad. But only about half of the FPL community chose that path, while the other half paupered the rest of their squad to keep Haaland; and they were absurdly well-rewarded for their faith in him when he banged in a remarkable 10 goals in the opening 5 games, for an unprecedented 63-point haul. But City's season began to unravel immediately after that, and he only managed 3 goals and an assist over the next 13 games. Although they began to rally somewhat around the end of the year, their form still looked shakey. Haaland, though, was nearly back to his best and scoring consistently: but was 8 goals and 2 assists in 11 games from Gameweeks 19 to 29 enough to justify that 15-million price-tag (remarkably, the sell-off on him during City's long slump was so slow-and-steady that he never dropped lower than 14.7 million!)? Probably not, when there were so many other strikers in great form, at barely half the price. Just when people were starting to get tempted by the Haaland option again around the start of March, he picked up an ankle injury and was out for two months. Yet he still ended the season on 181 points, the 5th best forward in FPL, and 10th best player. For a forward who only cost 8 or 10 million, that would have been just dandy; but for one who cost 15 million???  His price is bound to come down again next year, after this relatively 'disappointing' season; but I fear it won't drop enough to significantly change the dynamics of the game - he'll still be unaffordable!

There were a number of other forwards who looked like good acquisitions for a limited spell: Danny Welbeck and Raul Jimenez looked very good at the start of the season, Joao Pedro often looked the most enticing super-budget option (although, like Cunha, he has temperament issues which seriously undermine his FPL value), and Evanilson and Strand Larsen could have had much more impact if they hadn't suffered spells of injury. Omar Marmoush had an eye-catching debut half-season. Nicolas Jackson started the year very impressively, but then started to lose his way, as did Chelsea; and then he got sidelined for a month or so with an injury, and couldn't rediscover his scoring touch on his return,... and then got himself suspended for a particularly ugly foul near the end of the season. (With the news that Chelsea are now in the process of signing Liam Delap from Ipswich, I wonder if Jackson might have ended his career at the club with that rash assault on Sven Botman.)  Delap, Beto, and Ndiaye all looked intermittently promising prospects as well. But the much fancied Mateta, Solanke, and Havertz all disappointed (though it might be said that a lot of that was down to injuries sustained, and shakey team form, rather than bad performances from these players when they were fit).

I did own all of these most outstanding players at some point; most of them, in fact, were in my initial squad. And yet I still had a thoroughly appalling season! 'Tis a funny old game, indeed....  Having most of the right players, most of the time - isn't enough. You've got to have all of the right players, at all the right times - to do really well in this game. And get all your captaincy picks right as well....

Sheep Picks (9)

I quite often snipe at 'The Sheep' element among Fantasy Premier League managers - by which I mean the substantial numbers (possibly, alas, an overall majority) who don't really understand FPL that well, or even follow the EPL that closely, and so make most of their decisions based on an impulsive reaction to last week's results... and/or at the promptings of FPL's own vapid pundit 'The Scout' or the many similarly unimaginative 'influencers' out here on the Internet.... or indeed just following whatever seems to be a popular pick being mentioned a lot in online discussion forums. This often coalesces into a kind of collective hysteria - where the HUGE numbers of managers rushing in to buy a certain player bears no relation to his true worth, his likely points potential over the next handful of games. The player in question might not be at all bad (though often he is); but he is not the irresistible bargain, the must-have asset that so many people seem to think.

Hence, I created this occasional series of posts highlighting players I think are deangerously over-owned, are the subject of a sudden and misguided enthusiasm.

Now, I know I'm going to risk getting egg on my face with this one, but..... I'm sorry, I can't resist.

Yep, for Gameweek 29, I'm going to say..... Erling Haaland.

Quite a lot of people seem to be bringing the big Viking back into their squads for this week: he's one of the 4 or 5 most transferred-in players for the week, with just over 200,000 new owners coming in for him already (with a day left before the deadline). Now, that is probably mostly those benighted souls who are unwisely using their Free Hit this week; and not even all of them - only perhaps something between a half and two-thirds of them. Still, that's a pretty substantial phenomenon, which could have a big impact on relative outcomes this week.

I acknowledge it is dangerous for me to pooh-pooh their optimism. And I must state that I am by no means a detractor of Haaland: I admire his talent, and I believe he could be one of the most potent points-producers we've seen in FPL for a decade to come. He is the sort of player who comes up with some mighty BIG GAMES, often out of nowhere; he could produce a huge haul at any time, against anyone. So, yes - he might have a big game this weekend, and make all those 200,000 people who've just rushed in for him (and the getting on for 4 million who have - unaccountably! - been hanging on to him anyway; though many of those are probably extinct accounts, people who became disillusioned and abandoned the game during the first half of the season) feel very smug about themselves.

However, are there really any persuasive reasons to suppose that this weekend is likely to be one of those big games for our Erling? I can't see any. City's form continues to look extremely flakey; last week, against Forest, they managed to shore themselves up somewhat in defence (though they still weren't great), but at the cost of failing to produce any attacking threat at all. City are not looking like a side in contention for the Champions League places; they're looking like a side that are desperately scrapping for a chance of any European football at all next season. And now they're facing Brighton, who, although they've often been a bit defensively flakey this season, do appear to have been on a strongly improving trend again in the last few weeks. They have a brilliant - if somewhat eccentric and over-bold - young coach, and they're almost always very dangerous in attack, especially in swift counter-attacks down the flanks: i.e., exactly the kind of threat City have looked most vulnerable to this year. This is a game that is tough to call, could easily go either way; but it does not look likely to be a straightforward and emphatic win for City. If anything, on recent form, I'd make Brighton narrow favourites for a win.

So, why are so many FPL players suddenly so enthusiastic about Haaland's (non-)prospects this week? Well, in this post on the mechanics of the 'sheep' phenomenon, I warned against the malign impact of online influencers. And one of the worst of these is FPL's own anonymous tipster, 'The Scout', whose output is mostly so lame, superficial, and obvious - and occasionally so bizarrely eccentric and divorced from reality - that I increasingly suspect this content is largely or wholly AI-generated. This week, The Scout has somehow seen fit to not only recommend including Haaland in the starting eleven, but to make him captain. WTF???

Many people are feeling a little bereft and directionless, with so many top picks missing this week, including of course the man who's become most managers' almost invariable default captain this season, mighty Mo Salah. In circumstances like this, they may be even more easily suggestible than usual; and so, when The Scout comes up with his bizarre suggestion of a Haaland captaincy, The Sheep run bleating eagerly and gratefully towards it.... even if there is a sheer cliff of DISAPPOINTMENT adjacent that they might be about to run over the edge of......

Of course, yes, it might work out. But it looks to me like a very big risk - one that really does not deserve to work out.  I wouldn't even rate Haaland among the 3 best forward picks on this weeks' fixtures; in fact, I think I'd probably favour his opposite number on the visiting team, Joao Pedro, over him. But certainly, with the much easier opponents they face, and the much more convincing team and individual form behind them, Wood, Evanilson, Beto, and Strand Larsen look more promising prospects; just returned-from-injury Dominic Solanke, against an up-and-down Fulham, probably does as well. And if you're going to play a third forward (though most people are surely keeping Isak on their bench this week...), Raul, Vardy, Wissa, or perhaps even Rasmus Hojlund might be worth gambling on. But Haaland???  There is just no strong rationale for that pick - in the context of City's form, or the week's other fixtures.

Well, this one probably ended up in the mid-range of expectations: Haaland did play quite well, and did pick up an early goal (albeit only from the penalty spot) - which is rather better than some pessimists might have projected for him from this game; but City again weren't very convincing, didn't manage to dominate the game,... and didn't win - which is exactly what I, and the other 'pessimists', were correctly predicting. Some managers might feel well satisfied with a 7-point haul for their captain, but that is severely unambitious. Haaland's return here has to be viewed in the context of who else did well this weekend, and who else might have been expected to do well; he was, frankly, extremely lucky that the in-form Wood, Beto, and Evanilson - against very vulnerable opposition - somehow didn't manage to get on the scoresheet this weekend; but, among forwards, Hojlund, Muniz, and even Southampton's Onuachu did as well, Wissa did slightly better, and Strand Larsen (and, of course, his own attacking teammate Marmoush) did substantially better - which was not at all unexpected. When 3 forwards, and 14 more players in other positions (especially midfielders: there's rarely a strong argument for giving the captain's armband to a forward rather than a 'midfielder'...) all outscored him this week, you can't make much of a case for even having put him in the starting eleven, let alone making him captain.

A corner turned?

Manchester City fans - and FPL managers who own any of their players - seem to be taking much encouragement from their emphatic 6-0 win this weekend.

But is this one success really a sign that their troubles are over? Are they really that much better?

Well, here are some of the potential positives:

Kyle Walker's gone now; that can only be a good thing. His pace and stamina have looked to be waning rapidly of late, and he's really begun to look as if he's past it at Premier League level. His last few performances, certainly, have been quite dreadful (perhaps he's also been distracted by his turbulent private life, or greedy thoughts of getting ready to take the Saudi money in the twilight of his career?), and he had become a liability to the team.

But Ruben Dias is back - that's HUGE, immediately makes them look so much more solid and well-organised and confident in defence.

Ederson's back too. Though Ortega is a a more than competent replacement (probably, in fact, as good as Ederson in most aspects of the goalkeeping craft; an excellent shot-stopper), Ederson is the man the rest of the team have been used to playing with most of the time, so his return to the side will also probably inject some comfortable - and confidence-building - familiarity to the rear of the lineup, a feeling which has been lacking of late. And his stellar distribution adds another dimension to City's game - allowing them the ready option to abandon the slow build-up from the back occasionally and try more direct medium-length or even long balls up the park... with sufficient accuracy to produce a high chance that they will reach, and be retained by a City player. (It does make you wonder why he was out of the side for so long in the first place, though. There may have been some small injury issues behind some of it, but it did look also as if Pep had some kind of a 'problem' with him for a while - a matter of not liking his 'attitude' about something, perhaps?)

Matheus Nunes is still struggling to adapt to the full-back role, but he's an intelligent and versatile player who should be able to master it eventually. And anything is an improvement on Walker....

Dropping Rico Lewis is also probably going to make the team stronger. I am a big fan - as Pep evidently is - of his enthusiasm and workrate, his game intelligence, the incisive contribution he can make in advanced midfield areas. But he's still very young and inexperienced, and he just doesn't have the physicality to be able to dominate in individual duels; playing him as a makeshift full-back, particularly when out-of-touch Walker was on the other flank, or alongside on the right of the defence, was asking for trouble. He had, unfortunately, become - yet another - obvious defensive weakness that opponents can ruthlessly target.

Gundogan and Kovacic playing together as a double-pivot, and trying to sit a little deeper, does appear to provide the potential for a little more solidity in central midfield.

Kevin DeBruyne is starting to look something like his best again now. It has taken a while for him to get his 'match-fitness' back, and his contributions in his first few games back from injury had been rather intermittent. But in this one, he was a constant threat and supplied three assists.

And damn, yes, Erling Haaland is looking as though he has definitively rediscovered his scoring touch. (Although I've always tended to think that there was never much wrong with his form or confidence. He'd just been starved of service while the rest of the team was floundering so badly over the previous couple of months.)

And perhaps best of all, Phil Foden has not just got his scoring boots back, but seems to have rekindled his joie de vivre as well. This is the first time in a long while we've seen him looking so happy and confident, showing such exuberant joy on the pitch.

And a lot of people are also saying that the arrival of the pacey Egyptian forward Omar Marmoush could have a transformative effect for City in the near future. Adam Monk of FourFourTwo rates his prospects with the club very highly. He does appear to have a skills profile and versatility somewhat similar to the departed Julian Alvarez - perhaps enabling him to sometimes play alongside Haaland as a strike partner, as well as to fulfill a number of different attacking midfield roles through the middle or on either flank (rather than being merely an emergency replacement for Haaland).

Yes, there's a lot to take comfort from there. But I believe there are many, rather stronger counter-points:

Well, that victory was only against Ipswich; and Ipswich were really, really poor in that game - just gave up the ghost after the first couple of goals. Proving that you're not one of the four worst teams in the League isn't really evidence of any seismic shift in performance.

Dias still doesn't look quite 100% - and you worry if Pep might be rushing him back into the fray just a little bit, perhaps putting him at risk of a recurrence of his injury. (So, indeed, it would appear! The poor bloke broke down during the PSG game just a few days later, and had to be withdrawn at half-time. Ooops!)  Also, excellent though he is, he can't hold things together at the back entirely on his own; he needs Stones and Ake to be back in action too.

Matheus Nunes is not a natural full-back, and is struggling to adapt to the position at the moment (it's probably not helping when Pep switches him from one side to the other), and he has been making a lot of mistakes thus far. Also, it just seems to be a bit of a waste of his talents; it is quite baffling that Pep doesn't seem to fancy playing him in his best position in central midfield - especially since that is the area of the pitch where his worst problems are manifesting themselves. [JJ Bull of The Athletic recently suggested that he'd do better to reunite with Ruben Amorim at Manchester United and play in a double-pivot with Manuel Ugarte there.]

While Rico Lewis has occasionally looked a bit of a liability defensively, he's nevertheless been one of City's best players this season, and it is therefore, I think, unfortunate to abandon him completely. There ought to be a way to make use of him in a more advanced role.

Gundogan, unfortunately, now looks hopelessly out-of-his-depth at the top level, just does not have any legs any more. Pep seems to be guilty of a misplaced loyalty here, or an exaggerated gratitude for his past contributions, or is perhaps overrating the value of experience. Playing Gundogan as a defensive midfielder now has much the same effect as Casemiro has whenever Amorim is forced to field him at United: it's just an open invitation to the opponents to come marauding through the central areas at will.

And Mateo Kovacic, bless him, is a fantastic progressive No. 6, great passer of the ball, dangerous when pushing forward himself - but doesn't have a defensive bone in his body; he completely lacks the all-around awareness, the instinct to spot danger that is required for a stopper role. Persisting with him as a Rodri replacement is the main root of City's current problems. And those problems are NOT going to go away unless they can acquire a top-class defensive midfielder in this transfer window. (And I think they might have to settle for a loan deal on that - because who's going to transfer into a club to be a perpetual understudy to someone like Rodri for the next five years?)

DeBruyne still doesn't look 100% fit (not sure if this is so, but I read somewhere that he might have a small hernia - much like the problem that so impeded Son Heung-min last season; not a major disability, but a constant, niggling inhibitor of performance). And he's starting to show his age. It is probably not reasonable to expect him to ever quite regain the pinnacle of performance he was demonstrating a few years ago.

Haaland, of course, could still deliver some big goalscoring returns. But he's not the kind of player who - like Salah or Palmer or Mbeumo.... - creates chances for himself out of nothing; he needs good regular service. And I fear he's still likely to be often lacking that from this City side. Moreover, game states can have a big impact on patterns of play and on a striker's mentality: there's a lot of extra pressure on the main goalscorer when you're chasing the game - and City look like they might still quite often be chasing games.

I am a huge fan of Phil Foden, and I - more than anyone! - really hope that he has turned a corner this season, that he has ironed something out in his relationship with Pep that has restored his confidence, and that he is going to continue now to play with the effervescence he showed last Sunday. But that hope is still fragile. Phil thrived on the security of being an almost invariable starter for most of last season, in DeBruyne's absence, and on being given the responsibility of being the club's primary playmaker. And he thrives on being able to play in central areas as a highly mobile No. 10. If Pep is going to constantly swap his starting position around, and mostly ask him to play out wide on one of the flanks, I fear this new flowering of goalscoring form may soon wither again.

And I think it may be unreasonable to expect Omar Marmoush to be The Messiah to redeem City. He has not been an especially prolific scorer (apart from one very hot streak for Frankfurt earlier this season); in fact, until he moved to Frankfurt just under 18 months ago, he was almost entirely unacquainted with the goal. And, you know, the Bundesliga isn't exactly the same level of competition as the Premier League: even its top clubs would probably struggle against most of our leading teams; the majority of teams in that league would struggle in the Championship.

And, ahem, City now have one of the toughest runs of fixtures coming up that any side - certainly any top side - has to face in the second half of the season (along with two crunch games to try to avoid the ignominy of Champions League elimination at the group stage... and the dear old FA Cup). They might have a real struggle for points from now until some time in March: Chelsea, Arsenal, Newcastle, Liverpool, Spurs (terrible at the moment; but a bogey team for City in recent years), and Nottingham Forest is an horrendous sequencc. Brighton, Manchester United and Crystal Palace - and a fighting-for-their-lives Leicester - might not be a pushover after that either. The way City were playing up until a few weeks ago, it would not have been outrageous to suggest they might lose all of them. And I'm afraid I still think it's very likely they'll lose at least half of them.

So - NO, sorry; I am not at all convinced we've yet seen any clear sign of a City renaissance.

[And sure enough, the very next night they got absolutely torn apart by Paris St Germain. Despite rather fortuitously opening up a two-goal lead in the first half, they were outplayed for almost the whole game and ended up getting spanked 4-2.... and it might have been much worse.  City's problems are deep-seated and persistent. They might be capable of significant improvement.... but they're not about to get GOOD again any time soon.]

A week further on, they have scraped through into the knockout stage of the Champions League - but only by the skin of their teeth! Again, City can't take much comfort from a fairly dismal performance against Club Brugge: they were regularly cut open by the Belgian side on the counter-attack, conceded the first goal... and very nearly went behind again when Greek forward Christos Tzolis cracked a low 20-yard shot inches wide of the post - with Ederson rooted to the spot. If that one had gone in, I doubt if City could have found a way back into the game. 

And their ultimately fairly comfortable win over Chelsea at the weekend was a bit of a head-scratcher - really more down to Chelsea being surprisingly lacklustre rather than City being at all brilliant. They are still looking... well, not just a pale shadow of the team that dominated every competition in the the last few years, but a completely different team; a much, much worse team, a really rather shambolic team, who look like they could not just get beaten but properly spanked by just about any half-decent side. In his post-match interview on Sunday, Pep was again extremely downbeat; positively careworn and depressed-looking. And he came out with one of the most self-damning remarks I think I've ever heard from a Premier League manager, when he said, "Without the ball, we are one of the worst teams. We need the ball to survive."  No, even Pep doesn't think City are any good again yet. They're hanging on by their fingernails, only occasionally giving themselves a chance in games by trying even harder than usual never to give the ball away. But no team manages never to give the ball away; and, at the moment, every time City give the ball away, they look like they might concede a goal.

Oops - he did it AGAIN!

 

I joked last week that we might already have seen 'peak Haaland' for this season - at least in terms of his points-per-game average.  And then the bugger goes and gets another hattrick!!

Now, it would be absolutely astonishing if he managed to register THREE hattricks in successive weeks. (I don't think that's ever been done in the Premier League? And probably not in top flight football anywhere in the world, ever in history? But dammit, he is a record-smashing machine... Maybe it could happen??)  And, statistically, it does seem rather improbable that he'll even pick up a brace again for another month or so now....

But he is in exceptional form: probably the sharpest and most confident we've ever seen him. And that is utterly terrifying!

And it is prompting many people to revisit The Big Question I considered before the start of the season, whether a with-Haaland or without-Haaland squad was likely to be the best option for FPL this year.

I think that question is more open than we might have expected - an early switch of strategy more tempting - not just because of Haaland's exceptional start to the season, but because of the impressiveness of our options at the lower end of the price scale. No, we don't have any 4.0 starting keepers (like Areola last year) or unexpectedly starting and oustandingly good cheap defenders (like Gusto and Van Hecke); and we don't have a 'Player of the Season' available for only 5.0 (Palmer was a once-in-a-decade-or-two FPL miracle!!). But we do suddenly have Arrizabalaga, Johnstone, Verbruggen, and Ramsdale added to the pool of very decent keeper options at only 4.5 (I'd probably stick with Areola and Henderson as the strongest two at the moment; but Hermansen, Sels, and Muric could also emerge as tempting, more left-field picks); there's even a chance that 4.0 Fabianski might get a few starts, after Areola apparently hurt himself with a bad landing in the City game this weekend. Up front, we've got Wood, Wissa, Welbeck, Joao Pedro, Delap, Vardy, Calvert-Lewin, Duran and Strand-Larsen among the leading scorers so far - all priced between 5.0 and 6.0 million. And - outside of the inevitable Liverpool and Arsenal (and the slightly less inevitable Spurs!) back lines - all the top 15 highest-scoring defenders started the season at only 4.5 million. In particular, Rico Lewis getting a regular start at City (for now) is a huge bonus. And, to fill out the last couple of seats on the bench, there are even some OK defenders starting who cost only 4.0 million: Nedeljković, Faes, Harwood-Bellis.

Above all, there are some very strong-looking cheaper midfield options; and that is the area of the field where most of your points are usually produced. A With-Haaland squad would not be viable, I don't think, unless we could assemble a full roster of 5 strong attacking midfielders with the remains of our budget. But we have the likes of Smith Rowe, Semenyo, Iwobi, Rogers, Murphy, Wharton, Hudson-Odoi, Adingra, Minteh, Diallo, Kluivert, Tavernier, Sinisterra all looking like more-than-decent prospects to take up the last one or two spots in midfield.

It is looking perfectly possible to assemble a Haaland-Salah-Palmer squad that includes at least one other premium player, and doesn't go ridiculously light in any area of the pitch (NO non-playing bench!!). You only get into trouble, I think, if you rashly opt for Raya or Alisson in goal, and/or one or two of the more premium defenders. With Arsenal and Liverpool looking so solid, it is very likely that players from their defences will substantially out-perform almost all others, but.... will they do so by enough of a margin to justify the huge extra outlay?? That remains doubtful: the spread of points across the best keepers is usually fairly small; the spread across defenders - except for a few outliers sometimes - not much greater. Extra money spent almost always yields more points in midfield.

I can see why so many people are getting tempted to go for an early use of the Wildcard this week (I will probably have more to say on that before long): many of those who initially opted to go without Haaland - perhaps the majority - have had a change of heart. (It's probably safe to assume that almost no-one is moving the other way, and dropping him!)  I hope that's not just short-term reactionism, getting spooked by his two hattricks (you've already missed those: let it go....).  If you're going to make this momentous switch (as I think I will myself), it needs to be because you've carefully considered the overall budget constraints and the available player pool. At the start of the season, we didn't know how many of these cheaper options would be starting, or how good their prospects might be; now that is becoming more apparent, we have a better picture of what a strong With-Haaland squad could be.

Another way of looking at it...

Erling Haaland's hattrick at the weekend has catapulted him to 24 points for the season - an awesome, nay, positively terrifying total. That's an average of 12 points per game so far.

However, it would be astonishing if he ended up with an average of much over 8 points per game; and his owners would have to feel pretty well satisfied with anything above 6.5.

Thus, we are in fact likely to see Haaland's average points return in continuous decline through the remainder of the season....

Yes, we've already passed 'Peak Haaland'!!  (How's that for a 'positive reframe'?!)

Be not disheartened!

 

I pointed out a few days ago that The Game - in terms of attaining an ultimate high-ranking finish - was already over for anyone who'd had a 'bad day' on the opening Gameweek. For many of us, that got worse when Valentin Barco, who had looked to be the most promising 4.0-million-pound player this year, was sent off to Spain on loan; and even worse, when Jarrell Quansah precipitately dropped in price - making him now unsellable (there's really no-one cheaper to sell him for; and you can no longer afford anyone he was formerly the same price as...).

And then, for very nearly half of us, things got worse again yesterday when the lanky Viking picked up his first hattrick of the season (and many of that other half who'd bet on Haaland had not only made him their captain, but their Triple Captain - ugh!).

But this kind of thing always happens. The opening few weeks are particularly RANDOM; some players and teams start hot... others disastrously misfire.... others oscillate weirdly between the two poles, for no fathomable reason. Because there's so much uncertainty about which players are going to be available, which are going to be picked, who's going to be in form, and what tactics their manager is going to ask them to play this year... the whole thing is a huge LOTTERY.

There were at least 100 or so justifiable player picks going into the start of the season; and no-one could possibly know which of them were going to work out best over the opening weeks. In the last third or quarter of the season, the pool of reasonable picks will probably have shrunk to only 50 or 60, perhaps even a bit less, and it's likely that 3 or 4 or 5 players may have established themselves as unquestionable must-haves.... so, the differentiation between squads is a fair bit narrower (though it never disappears).

Also, as I touched upon in the first of my summaries of how far LUCK has affected each of the Gameweeks, there are likely to be more refereeing cock-ups early in the season (ring-rust, nerves, naivety... problems of rules interpretation or 'bad habits' that can, hopefully, be fairly quickly ironed out), which can add enormously to the randomness of results and FPL points returns.

Moreover, a lot of FPL managers are playing in a very short-sighted, short-term kind of way - either out of perverse greed and impatience, or just colossal naivety.... or, in some cases, because they're pursuing very limited objectives: some are participating in rogue leagues for side-games like pursuing a 'weekly win', no matter the cost in transfers; others, even if not formally in competition, set that as a goal for themselves; others again are just hungry to establish an early lead over their mini-league rivals. 

Managers like these were happy to blow a 'bonus chip' in the opening Gameweek! Many others opted to use their first Wildcard already in GW2! Those folks are really going to regret not having those chips available later in the season.  Even those who just played their 'Triple Captain' chip on Haaland against Ipswich, which worked out pretty nicely for them.... might come to regret the decision slightly if Mr Robot produces one or two even bigger hauls later in the season, which he probably will. And it is highly likely that some of the high-scoring midfielders (who, because the game loves them, get more points than a forward for the same attacking returns...) - Salah, Jota, Diaz, Palmer, Son, Saka; maybe Bowen or Eze or Mbeumo as well - will produce a few better hauls over the season. Haaland's 17 points on Saturday was an excellent return for the Triple Captain chip; but it almost certainly won't be the biggest of the season (maybe even for him), and if it ends up not even making the Top 5 or Top 10 hauls of the year.... 'grass is greener' remorse will assail those who are currently gloating so obnoxiously.

Over time, for most people (not everyone - but let's not bother ourselves too much about that), the operation of LUCK in this game tends to even itself out. People might start off being very lucky in the opening Gameweek; they might even be able to continue their good fortune for the next two or three weekends - but then things will start to swing against them.

The top of the global rankings are currently dominated by people who used their chips early and/or just got lucky on a couple of BIG selection guesses - this early success won't last for most of them.

TRUE MERIT only begins to assert itself in the FPL tables after 10-15 Gameweeks. Console yourselves with that, for now.

To Haaland, or not to Haaland...

That is the question.

The BIG, HUGE, overwhelming question of the moment for FPL managers everwhere. Many have been obsessing about it for weeks already.

The FPL gnomes have priced him at a staggering 15 million pounds for the start of this season - a new record for the game. Pricing him at 14.0 million last season (a level only previously reached by Thierry Henry [twice], Cristiano Ronaldo [just the once, in his youthful heyday a decade-and-a-half ago], and Robin van Persie [also just the once]) did nothing to diminish his massive ownership levels from the previous year,.... so they've gone one better this time; or one worse. Will that have the desired impact, in forcing people to consider going without him?

Well, partly. Most people are at least having a good long think about the conundrum. And at this point, his ownership is still just a shade under 45% - far lower than it was at the outset of last season.

But those ownership numbers are creeping up all the time, and it wouldn't surprise me if he's above 50% before the opening weekend kicks off.

In most of the online ponderings I've seen, three main levels of over-simplification can be found:

1) The most superficial argument is just to compere Haaland to his closest position competitor, and say 'Oh, Ollie Watkins (or Alexander Isak or....) is better.... or at least better points-per-pound value.'

2) The second level recognises that, because Haaland is so much more expensive than every other player this year, it's not fair to compare him simply with the forward you might replace him with; you also have to throw into the scales at least one other player that you're able to buy as an  upgrade with the money you save on the Viking. And so these folks offer up some example comparison pairings...: Haaland AND Nkunku... OR... Isak AND Palmer, for example.  But that doesn't work too well either, because even the most expensive midfielder (Salah) and the second most expensive forward (Watkins) still cost the same as or less than around 20% of the 250+ possible Haaland-plus-a-midfielder combinations. You're not just comparing Haaland to his replacement forward PLUS 1 other player, but probably to his replacement PLUS at least 2 or 3 other players.

3) The third level of superficiality changes tack, and simply asserts that Haaland can't be justified on a value-for-money basis. But as I briefly outlined in my post yesterday on the relationship between pounds and points, there are other factors (a high confidence of reaching an exceptionally high total, and of delivering consistently throughout the season with few serious fallow spells...), which can justify choosing a high-priced player, even if their points-per-pound return is very weak.

The fact is, if you omit Haaland and downgrade his forward spot to Watkins (9.0), Isak (8.5), Havertz (8.0), or one of the dozen or so other contenders priced a little lower at 7.5 or 7.0, you have so much extra money to spare that you can afford 2 or 3 major upgrades (to premium-price players), or perhaps 6 or 7 or 8 or so  more modest but nevertheless significant upgrades in other positions. (Actually, since many people seem to have been going for two other premium or semi-premium strikers - as well as Haaland! - anyway, you might in fact be talking about the possibility of a downgrade from 15.0 to only 5.5 or 6.0 million: that's a HUGE wodge of cash to redistribute.)

And there is just no way to know if that many squad changes will outweigh the very large number of points that Haaland is likely to bring.

Including Haaland is probably the safer path, because his points returns are very reliable: he will play every game he's fit; he's one of the best finishers the game has ever seen, and he plays for one of the best attacking teams; he'll almost certainly get 5 or 6 or 7 really big hauls during the season (braces or hattricks yielding well into double-digit points); he probably won't have many long fallow spells.

If he stays fit all season, he could well get close to, or even surpass 300 points. Perhaps no-one else will get above 250 this year; probably only a few will get even a little above 200. Haaland's advantage - if all turns out well for him this year - could be 50-100 points over any other player.

If that happens, he would be worth paying even this ridiculous 15 million pounds for.

But that is the optimistic end of his possible range. Maybe he won't do nearly that well, maybe he'll have a little bit of an 'off' season... and maybe several other players (including perhaps some surprising ones - like Palmer last season) will get very high totals, similar to or better than his.

And even if he does have a pretty good season.... having 6 or 7 'better' players in the rest of your side than most squads-with-Haaland can afford should be able to keep you on terms. If only half of those players get an extra few points more than most of the Haaland-squad players every week, it will almost wipe out the advantage of Haaland's very big weeks... and could - should? - start to open a little bit of a lead on those Haaland squads, bit by bit, whenever he returns a few blanks.

On paper, it really looks as if the No-Haaland option should work out better. 

But it's more of a risk, because Haaland is a set-and-forget player: he's so dependable that you can just put him in your squad for GW1 and leave him there for the whole season. If you choose to try to go without him, you absolutely have to make the most of every pound of your budget: those 5 ot 6 or 7 'better' players that you bring in with the money you save on him have got to produce every week. Some weeks  they won't; and sometimes one or two - or all! - of them will hit a run of poor form. With someone like Haaland, you usually feel safe riding out a run of a few bad games, because you're confident in how many points he can bring you overall. With lesser players, you are constantly assailed by doubts about whether they're going to work. And you'll have to constantly be searching for better, more in-form alternatives you can switch in for them.

Going without Haaland will be a lot of stress and hard work; but it could certainly bring success.  But you have to be prepared to endure the intense pain of remorse and doubt you will suffer every time he has a big week.....

And I tip my hat to the FPL gnomes for once; I think they have got the game's pricing structure very finely judged this year - it really is coming down to a 50-50 choice of whether to take Haaland or to leave him.

As I advised in one of my earliest posts here, I think the best approach is to draft a Haaland squad and a No-Haaland squad. Then take a long hard look at the two drafts side by side.... and go with whichever one calls to you more.

Ultimately, I think this choice, though it may be definitive for each of us individually, is not going to be a clear binary split that determines the shape of the season for the FPL community overall. Just as it is essentially a toss-up whether to include Haaland or not, so too I think it is a toss-up whether this year's global champion will have taken the Haaland or No-Haaland route. It's quite possible that both options will enjoy broadly equal success - and it is surely likely that our outcomes will be determined not by whether we had Haaland or not, but by who else we had in our squads.

[Also, of course, it is possible to change horses in mid-stream. Last year Haaland's price dipped a little during a lengthy spell of injury. Palmer established himself as the season's only true 'must-have' - at a ridiculously cheap price. And in the latter part of the season, the other two leading premium-price players, Salah and Son, both had a bit of a crash in form; so, we were able to ditch them, and have plenty of money in the kitty. Hence, it was actually quite easy to do without Haaland for large chunks of last season, but have him back in for the final run-in when he started producing again.]