It’s very tempting to build a team without Salah. That extra £4.5m you could free up elsewhere… that’s a lot. But it could also be very painful. And to make things clear right from the start – I am not recommending that anyone begins the season without Salah.
I still believe the safest strategy is to have him in your team.
And I’m speaking from experience.
I started last season without Salah. In fact, I only owned him for about five gameweeks in the second half of the season, when Liverpool had two double gameweeks in a row. Then I sold him again. I began the season with a Saka + Palmer + Son trio, and it was painful to watch the Egyptian King deliver double-digit hauls week after week. It ended up being a disappointing season for me, with an overall rank of 137,927.
So, if you’re thinking about going without Salah, prepare yourself for a stressful season. It might work, but it might just as easily fail. Last season, it absolutely did not work. Could this season be different? Sure. But we don’t know. We never do.
Salah is simply the best player we’ve ever had in FPL – quite possibly ever.
So going without him is a gamble. It’s speculation. It’s like buying crypto: you think you’re investing, but in reality, you’re only speculating – heavily. Benjamin Graham (author of The Intelligent Investor) would certainly have something to say about that.
And that’s my main point. Going without Salah isn’t “investing” and spreading funds around; it’s speculation – gambling. Intelligent investing should deliver slow, steady, and predictable returns – small wins over and over again while minimising losses. Speculation and gambling can bring huge wins, but also huge losses (and most of the time, it’s losses).
So, if you’re considering going without Salah, ask yourself: are you an investor or a speculator (gambler)? And act accordingly.
That said, I’m still tempted to do it again this season – to go without Salah. What could possibly go wrong again? But if I do, I’ll be fully aware that I’m gambling, not investing.
This would be my team with GW1 – GW3 captaincy sequence: Wirtz, Saka, Fernandes.
Ait Nouri and Frimpong could become Gvardiol and VVD.
