Why I don’t own Salah or Alexander-Arnold in FPL

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Next up, seven-time top 10k finisher Zophar wades into the Salah/Alexander-Arnold debate.

I am a huge Mohamed Salah (£12.5m) fanboy and this is the first time since the Egyptian returned to the Premier League that he is not part of my Gameweek 1 draft.

My pod partner Lateriser did an excellent analysis on Salah’s numbers towards the end of last season which I highly recommend reading. These are scary numbers indeed. 

WHY IS SALAH’S FPL APPEAL DIMINISHED?

I asked myself recently: what has changed in the FPL landscape to make Salah non-essential?

The number one factor has to be Erling Haaland (£14.0m) and the fact that he is going to be my captain every week, regardless of opposition (barring Double Gameweeks). The Norwegian takes up a large part of the budget, which means that even with a barebones bench, there’s only £69.5m to spend on the remaining 10 regular starters. 

What has also changed is the affordable pricing of the explosive midfielders in the game such as Bukayo Saka (£8.5m), Marcus Rashford (£9.0m) and Bruno Fernandes (£8.5m) etc. Each of these guys can produce an FPL haul to match Salah on his day and yes, while these hauls are often harder to predict, the fact that Haaland is the captain means you care more about ‘X’ returns over a period of Gameweeks rather than a big haul in a certain Gameweek where the player concerned is your captain. Even if the Norwegian is missing the odd game through a niggle, the likes of Saka and Rashford are perfectly good captains with their good run of fixtures. 

Do Salah (£12.5m) + Bryan Mbeumo (£6.5m) outscore Rashford (£9.0m) + Bruno Fernandes (£8.5m) over a period of 6-8 Gameweeks? Possibly but you’d expect that not to be the case. That extra £1.5m makes a difference, too, as you can sprinkle the cash around in defence and on your bench.

• READ MORE: Salah + Mbeumo v Rashford + Fernandes: the Rate My Team points projections for Gameweeks 1-8

SALAH AS AN FPL DIFFERENTIAL

Looking at the other side of the coin, it is probably the first time we can say that Salah is an FPL differential. As Lateriser mentioned in his piece, Trent Alexander-Arnold’s (£8.0m) midfield role allowed Salah to get in more central positions and having Dominik Szoboszlai (£7.0m) around to deliver those through balls is only going to help the Egyptian.

The Gameweek 2 captaincy is obviously also a huge draw but personally, I’d still be going Haaland against Newcastle. So while I can never say Salah is a bad option, do look at what sacrifices you are having to make and look at the total points expected from those areas rather than just Salah alone.

ALEXANDER-ARNOLD: ASSESSING HIS APPEAL

The Trent dilemma is a bit more difficult.

A price of £8.0m means that while he is on the steeper side, he’s still more affordable. He is £2.5m more than a £5.5m defender – compared to Salah being £4.0m more than Bruno Fernandes – which makes him easier to accommodate. For my draft, it comes down to something like Son Heung-min (£9.0m) + Ben Chilwell (£5.5m) versus Mbeumo (£6.5m) + Alexander-Arnold (£8.0m). 

Liverpool’s initial run of fixtures isn’t easy. On paper, the Gameweek 2 fixture against Bournemouth may look like a clean-sheet banker but who knows what the Cherries will be like under their new manager Andoni Iraola. The Spaniard is known to be very front-foot, a bit like Marcelo Bielsa from my reading so far. While I do expect Liverpool to win that one I am not so certain the clean sheet is as easy as it might seem on paper.

Newcastle away is always difficult and Villa usually find a way to score under Unai Emery. The Wolverhampton Wanderers game is decent again and the West Ham United one, as well. That’s followed by two away trips to Tottenham Hotspur and Brighton and Hove Albion before many of us will likely Wildcard. 

If you were to ask me how many clean sheets we can expect from Liverpool over the first eight Gameweeks, I’d say three. That’s still decent when you factor in the expected attacking returns we get from Alexander-Arnold, so I can’t really make a clear case for not owning him. He is probably the one player I am feeling uneasy about not owning but I just can’t find the budget midfielder I trust that would enable him. I already have Kaoru Mitoma (£6.5m) and the trauma suffered from owning Mbeumo in his debut top-flight season has stuck with me. Once we do know the best enablers as the season goes on, the Liverpool assets become much easier to accommodate. 

ALEXANDER-ARNOLD ALTERNATIVES

Again while considering Alexander-Arnold, we have to look at the alternatives that are available to us at a cheaper price.

Last year’s top scoring-defender, Kieran Trippier (£6.5m), is only £1.5m cheaper and is not favoured by many of us FPL managers initially because of Newcastle’s difficult opening run of fixtures.

But you then have the Arsenal, Manchester United, Brighton, Manchester City and Chelsea defenders all available at an upper limit of £5.5m. So you can effectively get a defence of Pervis Estupinan (£5.0m), Gabriel Magalhaes (£5.0m) and one of Chilwell, Reece James (£5.5m) or John Stones (£5.5m) for a price of £15.5m. Alexander-Arnold alone costs more than half of that.

I think that all the aforementioned assets are underpriced; £5.0m for Gabriel and Estupinan is ridiculous value. When there are so many bargain options available, that makes the sacrifices required for squeezing in Alexander-Arnold a bit less palatable in my opinion.

It’s also possible that Alexander-Arnold loses some of his set-pieces to Szoboszlai, who is quite good at free-kicks. Again, like Salah, it comes down to combinations and if you feel you have an enabler in attack that allows you to invest in Alexander-Arnold, go for it. He’s definitely a lot easier to accommodate than Salah. 

• READ MORE: FPL new signings: Who is Liverpool’s Dominik Szoboszlai?

FPL DRAFT WITH SALAH

Of course, a big advantage of going with either Salah or Alexander-Arnold is that they are a lot easier to downgrade than to buy after the season starts. Fitting either in is likely going to take two or three moves if you spread the cash around your squad. 

This is the best I could come up with while retaining a balanced squad. The main sacrifice here are the Manchester United assets: Andre Onana (£5.0m), Bruno Fernandes and Rashford. 

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