Fantasy Football: Time to drop Haaland?

Just like that, about a quarter of the Premier League’s gameweeks have passed in the blink of an eye, with the league starting to take some sort of proper shape.

For Fantasy Football managers, this is a good time to take stock of their teams and consider whether there are any resources that would be best spent elsewhere. 

One player in nearly everyone’s team is Erling Haaland – with close to three quarters (73.1%) of managers opting to include him in their teams. But, with only two goals in the last five games as this week’s transfer deadline at 11am tomorrow morning (2 November 2024) approaches, is the talismanic Manchester City forward justifying his cost? 

At £15.4m in the game, Haaland is by far the most expensive player and his lack of goals is starting to tell. Managers may want to consider whether their teams would be better served by the inclusion of a selection of other premium players or lower cost gems. 

However, there is always the risk that Haaland scores a hattrick from nowhere – and with a couple of points often being the boundary between moving up or down in the this year’s Insurance Times Fantasy Football League, it’s a risky decision. 

Other options 

Those who did elect to bring Haaland out of their teams have a few good options to consider. 

Read: Fantasy Football – RSA’s Hayden Williams Q&A

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Wolverhampton Wanderers have a run of good fixtures coming up and their Brazilian forward Matheus Cunha has been in fine form, with three goals in his last five games. 

Chris Wood of Nottingham Forest is another fine option, with only Brentford’s Bryan Mbeumo and Haaland having scored more goals than in him in the league this year. 

Whoever you decide to replace him with, bringing Haaland out also allows you to bring in more expensive players to your midfield and defence, with the aforementioned Mbeumo, Chelsea’s Cole Palmer and Arsenal’s Bukayo Saka also both having hit decent returns in recent games. 

For the avoidance of doubt, this is all just advice – this journalist has himself not yet decided whether to take out the Norweigan striker this week. So, if he scores a hattrick and you see him in my team, I don’t want to receive any emails about insider trading. 

Well, unless you want to whistleblow – that would actually make a good story.