With the new Fantasy Premier League campaign about to get underway, it’s time to finalise those drafts and lock your team in ahead of the fast-approaching deadline.
The first name in most managers’ starting lineups will be Erling Haaland (£15.5m), who has consistently put up huge numbers in the top flight.
But the Manchester City striker’s exorbitant price means that sacrifices must be made elsewhere in your squad in order to accommodate him.
That’s why almost 30 per cent of teams do not include the 26-year-old, as it allows managers to build a more balanced, arguably stronger side overall.
The problem with that, of course, is that Haaland can punish you badly if you don’t own him. He has historically started every Premier League season very strongly and always ends up with one of the highest-points totals in the game.
This year, though, offers an opportunity to gamble without the Norwegian for at least the first couple of weeks. City have decent but not amazing fixtures, starting off with Bournemouth at home before facing Crystal Palace away. He is also coming off a major international tournament for the first time in his career and we have no idea how that will affect his form.
Meanwhile, Manchester United travel to Hull City and host Ipswich Town in the first two gameweeks, making Bruno Fernandes (£12.5m) the best captaincy option in the opening fortnight.
If you choose not to put the armband on Haaland, then there’s definitely scope to go without him and spread the funds around your squad.
Importantly, if you do decide to take this route, then you should maximise your returns by activating your chips accordingly. Bench Boosting in either GW1 or GW2 becomes more viable with Haaland out of the team, then you can Wildcard him back in for Coventry City at home ahead of GW3.
The risk that comes with this strategy, however, is that Haaland may start very strongly in typical fashion while Coventry turn out to be ill-equipped for the Premier League, creating the perfect opportunity to stick the Triple Captain chip on the no.9 in GW3. But you cannot do that if you are also using your Wildcard that week, leaving you at a major disadvantage against managers who started with Haaland.
We have created three drafts to show you what a non-Haaland FPL team could look like. You do not have to copy any of these player for player, they are just to demonstrate the different paths you can take.
FPL Gameweek 1 deadline: Friday, 21 August, 6.30pm BST
The Football Faithful FPL league code: zog9n6
Fantasy Premier League: Building an FPL team without Haaland
Draft #1
Our first draft is very much focused on attack, with lots of firepower in the lineup. Joao Pedro (£7.5m), Alexander Isak (£9m) and Igor Thiago (£8m) make up an expensive front three, while our starting midfield includes Bruno Fernandes and Bryan Mbeumo (£8m) for that Hull game, and Antoine Semenyo and Florian Wirtz.
Arsenal‘s Riccardo Calafiori (£5.5m) is the only defender who costs more than £4.5m, and there are a number of cheap options from which you can pick for your backline. We’ve also gone for double £4.5m goalkeepers, the best whom are Bart Verbruggen and Antonin Kinsky.
You could easily use your Bench Boost with this collection of players. Christos Tzolis (£6.5m) is likely to start against Coventry, while Ola Aina and Michael Kayode (both £4.5m) are strong bench players.
Draft #2
This draft is much more balanced, though includes many of the same players. We have swapped out Thiago for Nottingham Forest’s Igor Jesus (£6m), who is £2m cheaper, but there are a lot of options at the same price point.
Dominik Szoboszlai (£7m) replaces Liverpool teammate Wirtz to save a little bit of money, which we can put into our defence. We’ve brought in Nico O’Reilly (£6.5m) and Pedro Porro (£5.5m), two of the best attacking defenders in the league, and instead of owning Harry Maguire (£4.5m) or another United defender we’ve put Senne Lammens (£5m) in goal.
The Bench Boost is also viable with this squad and you can tinker a little with the picks to get a stronger fifth defender than Issa Diop (£4m).
Draft #3
Our final draft is a lot more focused on having a strong defence, which was a winning strategy last season.
David Raya (£6m) has been given the gloves, while Gabriel Magalhães (£8m) replaces Calafiori for security of minutes, though you could hold onto the Italian instead of Porro to have triple Arsenal defence. We still need two cheap defenders, so we’ve gone for Luke Shaw (£4.5m) and Diop.
We have the same starting midfield from our second draft, but downgraded Tzolis to Diego Gomez (£5m). We have also gotten rid of our third forward and brought in Sindre Walle Egeli (£4.5m), who will sit on our bench, never to emerge.
It probably goes without saying, but this is not a team you can Bench Boost, unless you downgrade another midfielder and defender, and upgrade both Walle Egeli and Martin Dubravka (£4m).
Here’s what that could look like:
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