In his latest article, Pras – who has finished inside the top 40k in each of the last seven seasons – picks out seven reasons why a Gameweek 10 sale for Erling Haaland (£15.4m) is worth considering.

The theme for this article was going to be something entirely different. Something around long-term planning and fixture swings.

But after last night’s Carabao Cup games, where we got some new information on injuries, squad priorities and international break rests, I had to talk about the elephant in the room: keep Erling Haaland (£15.4m) or sell for Mohamed Salah (£12.7m).

First, for full context, this is my team now with £0.3m in the bank and a team value of £102.9m. I feel it is well positioned with three “premiums” in place already.

I have two free transfers but I’m looking to deal with the goalkeeper and two dud strikers in the next 3-4 weeks. 

In that context, using two free transfers to make the somewhat sideways move from Haaland to Salah doesn’t feel great.

But here are a few reasons (or confirmation bias!) why I am tempted to pull the trigger.

Manchester City injuries 

It was much documented after last night’s game that Manchester City are threadbare at the moment. Minor injuries to Manuel Akanji (£5.5m) and Savinho (£6.5m) and possible niggles to Josko Gvardiol (£6.2m) and Ruben Dias (£5.5m) are added to prior absentees like Kevin De Bruyne (£9.4m), Kyle Walker (£5.3m) and Jack Grealish (£6.4m).

Even though Haaland got a full rest last night, the others around him still need to create the chances. This doesn’t mean City suddenly lose to Bournemouth and Brighton and Hove Albion but surely energy conservation, if two goals up, could well be on the cards.

De Bruyne being out at least until the next international break is particularly not ideal for Haaland either.

City travels

#ManCity’s Jet2 flight from London has now arrived back in Manchester with 11 fully-fit outfield first-team players on board. 🛬✅

— City Xtra (@City_Xtra) October 31, 2024

Having travelled back from London on Wednesday night/the early hours of Thursday morning, Man City have a further three away ties back to back. A trip to Bournemouth on Saturday, then off to Lisbon on Tuesday and back on the south coast to Brighton next Saturday. When put into the context of the threadbare squad, the performance is bound to suffer, even 5-10%.

Gameweek 12 fixture swing

The much-documented fixture swing happens in Gameweek 12. Long-term fixture swings for Chelsea, Arsenal, Brighton and Bournemouth and shorter ones for Newcastle United, Aston Villa and Manchester United mean there are going to be a plethora of new options opening up soon.

We’ll see teams with Alexander Isak (£8.3m), Ollie Watkins (£9.1m), Nicolas Jackson (£7.9m), Kai Havertz (£8.2m), double Arsenal defence and Trent Alexander-Arnold (£7.0m). Then there’s the abundance of other cheap strikers emerging.

It was always a window where “Haaland out” was going to be popular, so it’s a question of whether that’s doable a couple of weeks earlier.

Captaincy

Haaland could score the most overall points by a small margin and still be a sell if he isn’t the top captain most weeks. There are other viable options that can even just match his output.

Here are the top three captains in each of the next six Gameweeks, projected by the FFScout Rate My Team (RMT) points model: