FPL tips and talking points – are Erling Haaland and Mohamed Salah essential in your side?

Having both players gives you a fantastic captain choice most weeks and also makes it very hard to fit another premium player into your side.

Yes, you can have a Cole Palmer or Bukayo Saka in there too, but almost every other player in your squad would be £5.5m or less – and history tells us that those prices don’t often result in high-scoring FPL players.

Your big-money alternatives are Palmer (£10.6m), Saka (£10.1m) and Son Heung-min (£10m). I’d also throw Phil Foden (£9.4m) and Kevin de Bruyne (£9.6m) in that category, along with Ollie Watkins (£8.9m).

But there’s only week six of the next six gameweeks where you might captain one of these players over Salah or Haaland – when Palmer’s Chelsea have Brighton at home and Saka’s Arsenal face Leicester at Emirates Stadium.

Verdict: If you don’t have both already then it might be time to rip up your plans – and even use your first wildcard – to get Haaland and Salah in.

However, it’s important to play your own game and look at the state of the rest of your side. As mentioned, it is hard to find regular FPL points scorers under £6m.

For example, a combination of Salah and Villa’s Morgan Rogers (£5.1m, 6 FPL pts) could become Palmer and Brentford’s Bryan Mbeumo (£7.1m, 24 FPL pts), so if you prefer how that looks in your team then go for it.

Palmer and Mbeumo certainly have the potential to outscore Salah and Rogers, assuming the Liverpool man stops getting double digits each week.

This is the context you have to consider when making your choice – can you match Salah’s output by spreading the funds around?

Equally, if you were brave enough to go without Haaland then you could have Salah, Saka, Palmer AND players such as Kai Havertz and Watkins up front too.

Ditching the most expensive FPL player ever gives you plenty of freedom.

Just don’t be surprised if the big Norwegian wraps up a hat-trick after 30 minutes against Brentford next time out!