Erling Haaland (£15.3m) has been a big talking point in Fantasy Premier League in recent weeks, and for good reason.

The Manchester City forward is the most expensive player in FPL history.

But after scoring 10 goals in his first five Premier League games this season, he has managed just one in the past five. Understandably, this is a cause for concern for its many owners. A few weeks ago I explored whether it was worth giving Haaland the triple captaincy. Now we can legitimately talk about selling him. This just goes to show how quickly the landscape can change in this game and that you can’t escape the Haaland conundrum.

Injuries to midfielders Kevin De Bruyne (£9.4m) And Rodri (£6.3m) have had an impact on the Norwegian’s performances and on Pep Guardiola’s team in general (they have lost three games in a row in all competitions). However, Haaland has also missed five big chances in the last two games, while scoring a combined expected goals (xG) of 3.21, so it’s not as if he has been denied opportunities.

Should we keep faith in Haaland or get rid of the Premier League’s top scorer?

Here we look at the pros and cons of selling a striker who is on course for a third Golden Boot in as many seasons in English football.

The reasons to sell Haaland

Free up money

Haaland won’t stay this quiet in terms of goals for that long, but that’s not the point. The money you save by removing him can do wonders for your team.

You can transfer to Liverpool Mohamed Salah (£12.8m)the second most expensive player in the game, and has £2.5 million to spare. That extra money can upgrade other positions on your team; acquire Josko Gvardiol (City, £6.2m) or Trent Alexander-Arnold (Liverpool, £7.0m) for example about a budget defender, or Bukayo Saka (Arsenal, £10.1m) instead of Luis Diaz (Liverpool, £7.7m).

Let’s say you didn’t want Salah, and instead demoted Haaland to Aston Villa Ollie Watkins (£9.0m)who is the second most expensive attacker in the game. This would give you a team including Watkins, Saka and Tottenham’s Son Heung-min (£9.9m), Chelseas Cole Palmer (£11.0m) and Alexander-Arnold – and quite easily.

It would also give you a deeper team, which will be needed during the busy festive period.

Haaland has not scored a goal in four of the last five gameweeks (Alex Pantling/Getty Images)

There are alternative supply options

From now until Gameweek 18, there are arguably better captain options than Haaland m.

This captaincy matrix below from @LegoMane_FPL is a useful tool.

The ©️APTAIN and
PREMIUM matrix 🖊️

🗓️ #GW11 – to – GW21

🟪 Highlighting the main CAPTAIN and PREMIUM player options: HOME and AWAY matches versus last season’s bottom 12/promoted sides 👀#CaptaincyMatrix #FPL

💚💛❤️ pic.twitter.com/LLwevMZfYG

— Legomane (@Legomane_FPL) November 3, 2024

As we can see in Gameweek 11, Salah and Son or his Spurs teammate Dominic Solanke (£7.7m) are good alternatives when they play against Villa (H) and Ipswich Town (H).

Looking through the options, we can see that Haaland isn’t really needed as captain until Gameweek 18 or 19 when you own two of Saka, Salah, Palmer and Son.

If you want a deeper look, Holly Shand has explored the non-premium captaincy options for the next few gameweeks.

The potential benefit

Despite Haaland’s recent failures, he is still owned by 69 percent of FPL managers overall.

He will still be captained by many managers, so picking different skippers for your team over the next eight or nine gameweeks is a special move and if it works it could propel you up the rankings.

You may be more inclined to do this if you are not currently in a good rank.

Reasons to keep Haaland

He’ll be hard to get back

Haaland is expensive and one downside to getting rid of him is that you will most likely have to play without him for at least seven to eight gameweeks.

Once you sell it and spread the savings, it will be difficult to get it back. Not only will you have to make multiple transfers, but you will also need the money you invested in one of your other premium players, who probably have good fixtures.

So if that player turns into the Haaland of Gameweek 1 to Gameweek 5, you’ll need to hold your nerve because chances are you won’t have an easy route back to the City striker. You want to spend your transfers fixing your weak links and maximizing points: not flipping on Haaland every few weeks.

So if you’re a fickle FPL manager, you might want to avoid selling.

Haaland is a reliable captaincy option

One of Haaland’s biggest advantages is his consistency. He easily takes the decision of who will be captain out of your hands most weeks. There isn’t a week where he is truly a ‘bad’ captain as he is one of the few players who can win against any opponent.

Having multiple captains to choose from isn’t always a positive thing, and there’s nothing wrong with ‘perma-captaining’ the City forward.

In the first five gameweeks of the season, Haaland scored 10 times (Justin Setterfield/Getty Images)

The potential downside

Haaland’s high ownership means that if he starts scoring regularly again after you sell him, you’ll drop down the rankings if your other bounties don’t perform.

With two or more transfers

If you’re considering selling Haaland, it’s only worth it if you immediately use the money saved to invest in another premium asset or spread it across your team. This means we have to use at least two transfers and that is a big commitment at the moment, especially with an international break after the upcoming Gameweek 11 matches.

Ideally you want at least two free transfers in the break, so you might leave yourself a little vulnerable. If you’re in the fortunate position of having collected three or more free transfers, this isn’t so applicable. However, there is a big match change from Gameweek 12 for the likes of Chelsea, Arsenal and Brighton.

Entering the international window with three or more free transfers is like a mini wildcard and can be hugely beneficial.

Haaland will perform well again – perhaps even this weekend in Brighton – and keeping him is fine.

Guardiola has a number of key figures recovering from injuries and their 4-1 defeat to Sporting Lisbon in the Champions League on Tuesday was another indicator that they are not the team we are used to.

If I sold Haaland, that would happen only To facilitate the signing of Salah, Liverpool are playing better as a team than City and he still seems just as important to them.

The difference in expected points between these two players over the next eight weeks is similar in my opinion, but for the next two weeks Salah is the better captain option. Plus, saving money to invest in other parts of your team would push me to favor him in the medium term.

Moreover, I would only switch if it was possible for free. I don’t think it’s worth a hit. If you are not sure yet, you can wait a week. Liverpool play Villa at home and City go to Brighton in this round, so the difference in difficulty is not big.

However, in Gameweek 12, Liverpool have a poor match against Southampton while City welcome Spurs, so the change could be made then as well.

GO DEEPER

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(Top Photos: Getty Images)