Why Mane could be an explosive FPL differential captain in Gameweek 5

In Gameweek 5, Liverpool face Crystal Palace and Mohamed Salah (£12.5m) will be very highly captained.

However, if you are one of those Fantasy Premier League (FPL) managers who is actively looking for differential captaincy options each week, who are potentially more explosive, then this article may be for you.

Against Crystal Palace, I expect to see a much less open game than the one we saw at Leeds United in Gameweek 4. Therefore, for the sake of accuracy, I will use the Burnley game at home in Gameweek 2 as the sample match for assessing Liverpool assets against compact defences.

SALAH’S FORM

There is no denying Salah’s rich vein of goalscoring form at the moment, with three Premier League goals so far this season.

He also had a goal ruled out against Burnley in Gameweek 2.

Though it was correctly given as offside, the way Salah opened his body up to curl the ball past Nick Pope (£5.5m) was impressive.

In the second half, after chesting the ball down from a Kostas Tsimikas (£4.1m) cross, his ability to manoeuvre in tight spaces and engineer a shot for himself also stood out.

However, there is a case to be made against Salah against more compact defences. Whilst Diogo Jota (£7.7m) tends to drift closer to goal, Salah would often retreat to the edge of the penalty box instead to get more shooting opportunities.

This is not to say Salah is not lethal in these sorts of positions though. We have seen numerous past occasions where he was able to curl one in from the edge of the penalty box.

MANE CENTRAL