Lateriser’s FPL Gameweek 1 team reveal: No Salah

With Gameweek 1 of Fantasy Premier League (FPL) 2024/25 nearing, we’re getting the latest team reveals from our team of Hall of Famers and guest writers. Here, two-time Indian FPL champion Lateriser shares his updated draft – which omits a certain Mohamed Salah…

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Right. It’s almost pens down time. Almost.

I felt pretty calm about my team on Monday after the last set of friendlies. Then last night, I had an existential crisis. I don’t know if it was just me or every FPL manager who starts questioning all their picks now that we’re actually just about committing to them. In the chaos of the last week, it is easy to forget what our calm, cemented thoughts were.

But we must remember that Gameweek 1 is more a shot in the dark than any other week, really. Unexpected events will unfold and it is about how we react to that. I am tempted to punt on many ‘now’ things initially but there is a world in which you should balance the ‘things we know’ versus the punty ‘things we think might happen but don’t know for sure’.

In this final article before the big kick-off, I’ll take you through the dilemmas I have with my draft and team structure as I finish things around the edges.

Havertz v Solanke v Muniz

Ange Postecoglou mentioned to us that Dominic Solanke (£7.5m) has had a full pre-season except for not playing one game due to a knock. However, I do wonder how quickly he’ll gel in with his new team-mates and how are his expected minutes going to look especially with Richarlison (£7.0m) still at the club.

My first instinct with Solanke was that he was too much of a sure thing and the first two fixtures are really great. However, Kai Havertz (£8.0m) also has a really good first four matches. He has already gelled with his teammates and only three players had more attacking returns than the German in the second half of last season. I have come around to the fact that, given Arsenal’s first four fixtures and how settled they are as a team, going without at least one of their attackers doesn’t look very smart. This is why I think I need to make space for one of Havertz or Bukayo Saka (£10.0m) in my team.

Wolves have moved to a four at the back in pre-season, too, so it wouldn’t surprise me to see more than a few goals from the Gunners in Gameweek 1. I also have thought all throughout pre-season that Rodrigo Muniz (£6.0m) at his price is a perfectly fine pick, with especially good fixtures in Gameweek 2 and 3. Do we need to really go for Solanke or can we instead spend that £1.5m elsewhere in the squad? I’ll be pondering this until the deadline.

Saka v Bruno v Salah

In the squad you see below, the permutations that I am playing around with are:

1. Saka + Solanke + Nkunku
2. Fernandes + Solanke + Nkunku + £1.5m (spending on a second £4.5m defender and Morgan Rogers as my eighth attacker)
3. Salah + Muniz + £5.5m midfielder

As I mentioned above, Solanke playing centre-forward in a very attacking Spurs team that generates xG and chances for their centre-forward might be too much to give up on. I’ll be keen to see what Postecoglou has to say about Solanke in his press conference but the first indications were certainly positive.

Now, Mohamed Salah (£12.5m) is someone who has featured in all my drafts – up until this weekend. I’ve loved the fact that he’s had a full pre-season and while people have thought that he was ‘wide’ in the last game, that was just his rest position. He looked to come forward and drift infield any time he got the chance. He even was playing on the shoulder of the last defender, should Liverpool choose the option of a quick transition.

I think this one eventually comes down to captaincy and what going Saka over Salah enables, as you can see in the options above. I think Salah is a perfectly good pick and I might be wanting him in Gameweek 4 anyway. Until then, I think my team covers the other captaincy options.

I will still think about the dilemma above because I do think that the £5.5m midfielder bracket is stacked. I like Emile Smith-Rowe, Yankuba Minteh and Daichi Kamada as picks in that bracket with the option of going down to Oscar Bobb (£5.0m) or Rogers (£5.0m) if they explode early on.

But there is genuinely nothing wrong with Saka as a pick. It again comes down to the ‘things we know’: the Arsenal winger is a 200+ point player, in a settled team, in one of the two best attacks in the league, aged 22, and possibly with an extra gear still tocome.

I did notice over the weekend that he drove infield on every occasion and was even placed at the back post for a couple of quality crosses coming from the left. Mikel Arteta will be aware that without a 25-goal striker, he will need more output from his front three as a collective and will place Saka close to goal.

I struggled with timing Saka last year and he did punish me, so I want to correct that mistake – which is why I’m leaning towards option A from the above three alternatives. I’ve got a good feeling about Bruno Fernandes (£8.5m) this season because I don’t think he’ll have to do as much ‘ball carrying’ as he had to do in the past. I expect him to be further up the pitch and for him and Alejandro Garnacho (£6.5m) to be genuine FPL options. That said, if it is Fernandes + £1.5m or Saka + thinner squad, Saka is just objectively a better pick – especially given the fixtures and the settled nature of the Arsenal team.

GAMEWEEK 1 CURRENT TEAM

As things stand, this is my current draft:

That is all from me today. If you want more, Pras, Zophar and I have done pre-season content almost every day. Our latest effort is a marathon pod discussing the best FPL midfielders, which you can view below.

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