Fantasy Premier League Gameweek 11: Hints, transfer tips and whether it’s time to sell Man City’s Haaland

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Our resident FPL expert offers up his hints, tips and thought on selling Erling Haaland ahead of Gameweek 11.

Another week, another deadline, another set of difficult decisions to make. The Fantasy Premier League grind continues with Gameweek 11 and our resident FPL expert is back once more to help you navigate your way to as many points as possible.

This week, he’ll help you with some forward planning, wonder whether there really is an argument for selling Erling Haaland, and look at how long you should hang on to Nottingham Forest assets – but before we pass you over, we’ll offer up our regular reminder of this week’s transfer deadline, which instance is a late one, at 13:30 GMT on Saturday 9 November. So you can enjoy a lie-in, for once.

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Time to cut some sacred cows?

Over the past week or so, one question has cropped up time and again in the FPL community – after a measly return of just one goal in five games, is it finally time to cut ties with Erling Haaland?

It seems, on the surface, like a simple judgement call. Do you think that the best goalscorer of the last couple of Premier League seasons will come good and start scoring again? It even seems to have a very probable answer. But it’s a bit more complicated than that.

For starters, it’s very likely that the absolute best team possible doesn’t have Haaland for large parts of the season. At more than £15.0m, he eats into space that could be spent, for instance, on multiple premium midfielders who would score more points combined. Haaland is, in some ways, meant to be a safety valve, a ‘guaranteed’ stream of steady points as the returns of players like Cole Palmer and Son Heung-Min fluctuate. Of course, that isn’t happening.

So when he’s off colour, you sell him, right? Well… only if you’re pretty confident that he’s off colour for good. He certainly hasn’t been on his best form over the past month, but equally he’s still scored a couple in the Europa League, a brace for Norway against Slovenia, and so on – across October, he scored five times more than Ollie Watkins, for example, and he’s on much better goal-scoring form than Dominic Solanke and Alexander Isak. He just hasn’t been doing it in the Premier League, where it’s more useful for the purposes of the game.

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Manchester City have some relatively tough games coming up and aren’t on great form – in fact, they’ve lost three times on the bounce in all competitions for the first time in years. But they’re still facing sides like Brighton & Hove Albion and Tottenham Hotspur who can be inconsistent.

The safe play is probably to keep him. If you’re shooting for the moon and going for a massive score and the world number one ranking, then selling him is a perfectly reasonable gamble. If you’re just trying to win your work mini-league, selling him might just be asking for trouble. He is, after all, bound to start scoring again at some point. Remember as well that because he’s so expensive, transferring him back in is far from straightforward once you’ve sold him. For most purposes, I’d lean towards keeping him.

That’s especially true because the other premium strikers just aren’t returning enough for my liking. Solanke bagged a brace last week, which is promising, and Isak is back to full fitness at least, but neither look like better bets than Chris Wood, Mathues Cunha or Yoane Wissa (whose underlying stats, by the way, are absurdly good). I mentioned last week that a double budget striker strategy could be the best way to add extra firepower in midfield, and nothing I’ve seen since has persuaded me otherwise.

One striker in particular that can probably be moved on is Watkins. The Aston Villa forward simply hasn’t recaptured his sparkling form of last season and while he’s plainly still a dangerous player, his returns are hampered by the fact that he’s regularly switched out for Jhon Durán. Watkins only tends to play the full 90 minutes when Villa are struggling for a goal, which are the games he’s going to score fewer points in. At £9.0m, I just can’t justify having him in the team over much cheaper players with bigger returns and easier upcoming fixtures.

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A lot of people already have Cole Palmer, but if you don’t then next week is probably when most players will want him back in, pending updates on his fitness – and Bukayo Saka’s fixtures ease up, too. The single best argument for selling Haaland is probably that such premium midfielders will do more damage – but if you can plan your transfers ahead such that you can move Watkins or Solanke on instead and get to the best midfielders, that seems like the better bet.

One last discussion worth having is the one about Nottingham Forest players. Nuno Espirito Santo’s side have operated above all expectations in recent weeks and players like Chris Wood and Ola Aina are becoming outstanding assets. But it’s worth noting that they’re about to run headlong into a much, much tougher stretch of fixtures, and buying in now doesn’t make much sense.

If you’ve already got these players, that doesn’t mean they’re urgent sells. Wood seems likely to chip in with the odd goal for the foreseeable future, and while we’re baffled by the number of people transferring Aina in after a 15-point week, he’s still a solid long-term hold at his price point provided you have enough strength in defence. Selling Aina now that his price has risen is still more sensible and justifiable than buying him, though. He scored one goal. It won’t happen every week. Probably.

In short, I like Arsenal and Chelsea’s upcoming fixtures and want to plan for a world where I have players like Saka, Palmer and Nicolas Jackson from next week – and while I doubt that I’ll sell Haaland just yet, if moving Watkins or Aina on gets me closer to my goal, then that’s what I’ll be doing. Anything which takes you further from Saka and Palmer right now probably isn’t a smart move. And if you already have them? Well, just kick back and enjoy the show…

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Captain picks and 3 Added Minutes FC

As always, I’ll wrap up by checking in on our options for the captain’s armband this week and by providing an update on my example team, 3 Added Minutes FC – and this week, while I still don’t blame anyone from making Haaland their skipper against a relatively leaky Brighton defence, I’m looking at Son Heung-Min as the best option for those that have him.

Otherwise, Haaland is probably still ahead of most of the other usual suspects like Saka, Palmer and Mohamed Salah based on fixture difficulty, with Salah the best of those three on paper. A Spurs captain surely makes the most sense with a home game against Ipswich Town coming up, though.

As for my team, I had another solid week, collecting 53 points against a global average of 39 – and after my dire start to the season, sticking with my process is starting to pay off as I’ve risen over 1.5 million places in a fortnight. It’s still a long way off where I’m more used to being, but I’m headed back in the right direction and happy with recent decisions, even if back-to-back Top 2,000 finishes look a little unlikely just now…

How 3 Added Minutes FC are lining up for Gameweek 11How 3 Added Minutes FC are lining up for Gameweek 11
How 3 Added Minutes FC are lining up for Gameweek 11 | Fantasy Premier League

For this week, I’m selling Watkins and signing either Cunha or Wissa, a decision I haven’t yet made but which will involve some planning around how I’ll move back to Palmer and Saka next week. With just two free transfers in the bank, I won’t be selling Aina. He’s here for the long haul, but I expect to bench him a fair amount going forward. Son will get the armband, quite likely just before I drop him.

That’s all for this week. Best of luck, and may all the strikers you sell miss every chance that comes their way for the next few gameweeks.

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