Should FPL managers sell Harry Kane for Erling Haaland? | OneFootball

The brilliant @BigManBakar shares his thoughts on whether or not FPL managers should sell Harry Kane for Erling Haaland, powered by Fantasy Football Hub data and his stellar FPL record.

You can find Bakar’s first FPL draft team here.

Should FPL managers sell Harry Kane (£11.4m) for Erling Haaland (£11.6m)?

A lot of FPL managers bought the “tried and tested” Harry Kane (£11.4m) ahead of the “unproven at Premier League level” Erling Haaland (£11.6m) ahead of Gameweek 1.

I don’t think it was a bad call on paper – as I expected both of them to be excellent options in their own right.

However, the way it turned out, the variance in FPL points between them turned out to be brutal.

Haaland registered twice for Man City in a 2-0 win ,while Kane somehow dodged points in a game in which Spurs scored four.

Not only does it put Haaland’s owners 11 points to the good, but also gives them a head-start in terms of transfers ahead – you’d expect most Kane owners to flock to Haaland after what transpired, while Haaland’s owners can now make use of transfers elsewhere.

If you’re a Kane owner, I am all for making that move – if you haven’t already.

A lot of FPL managers jumped from Kane to Haaland on Sunday night to tackle the price changes and rightly so – both went in opposite directions on Monday morning.

This price change now crucially means that anyone who does not have money in the bank cannot make the Kane to Haaland transfer, unless forced to do so for a hit.

If you find yourself in the uncomfortable position where you’re not sure whether or not to take a hit for Haaland, I’d suggest you do so. I present my arguments below:

I don’t like using the term “essential” loosely but I genuinely think it does justice to Erling Haaland’s FPL prospects at the moment.

Haaland was top among all players in the league for shots in the box, big chances, xG, expected goal involvement (xGi) and non penalty xGi in Gameweek 1.

I suspect these are statistics we will often see this season – given how Man City play, the majority of chances should fall to Haaland which will make him a talisman from a FPL point of view.

Manchester City create a silly amount of chances and historically, Haaland has been an xG overperformer – which is exactly what you want from your premium FPL pick.

As if my confidence in him needed some further re-assurance, Pep Guardiola pretty much confirmed that Haaland will be on penalties this season:

Now this is fairly big news, especially when you factor in the number of penalties Man City are likely to get – they have been awarded nine or more penalties in each of the previous three seasons.

Erling Haaland. Picture by Getty

When you factor in that Haaland is owned by over 50% of FPL managers at the moment and the significant majority of them will captain him against newly promoted Bournemouth in Gameweek 2, I just think avoiding him is far too risky a call to be making at this stage of the season.

That ownership is only increasing – over 750,000 FPL managers have already bought Haaland this week and we’re still four days away from the deadline.

To put that into context, the second most bought player, Oleksandr Zinchenko (£5.1m) has 420,000 transfers in this week, and is almost halfway off Haaland’s tally.

Looking ahead, Haaland faces Bournemouth, Newcastle, Crystal Palace and Nottingham Forest in his next four fixtures – with three of them at home.

Other than the Newcastle game, I think all the rest have the potential of ending up in cricket scores for Man City and are hence fixtures you can afford to captain Haaland in.

Champions League won’t be a factor for the next few weeks either – so a fully rested, nailed and an in-form Erling Haaland with the fixtures in his favour is not a beast you would want to bet against.

Thanks for reading!

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