Into The Weeds

Another minus 4 this season. I've taken out Son and Trent Alexander-Arnold to bring in Saka and Estupinan. My original thinking, a week or so ago, was to take a minus 4 to bring in Saka/Foden and Haaland, but Haaland remaining out for the FA Cup tie quashed that idea. Either way though the decision to simply leave Salah on my bench has remained consistent.

I'll be going into GW21 with Salah benched and 10 million in the bank, so looking at things simply on a squad value level it doesn't look too good. You'd think having that much of the budget benched and unused would come at a heavy cost. However, instinctively I don't feel bad about it at all. The money allows me to easily get Haaland in should the opportunity arise, and keeping Salah feels like a fun gamble. It's unlikely Egypt will go out early, but if they do I get a massive dividend. Plus, I will want him back as soon as he is back. It's all well and good saying I'll take him out and put the money to one side to bring him back, but things rarely work out like that. Other issues inevitably crop up. So I'm just going to keep him.

With TAA it was a little different. A lot of people will no doubt keep him, which could prove sensible (of course, what's right and wrong always depends upon your own particular circumstances, so there's rarely a true right and wrong). Going into this run of games the one player I feared was Estupinan, so this gave me a nice excuse to bring him in. I also don't like holding injured players. I could've taken out Senesi instead, who is suspended this week, but the Bournemouth fixtures are okay and I need a decent squad if I'm going to carry a non-playing Salah.

This is how I'm looking for GW21. You'll see Saka is captain (I'm hoping he finally goes big just as I bring him in - it would be just my luck this season given the good luck I've had in other weeks). You'll also see a Brownhill in the starting eleven. This may look like madness alongside the decision to keep Salah ..that spot could easily be a Foden/Richarlison/etc. Even if Brownhill just gets his usual two points though it would mean I'd need a six point swing this week with the minus 4. So I'm actually quite happy to play him. It's another one of these fun little differentials that make the game interesting. Burnley vs Luton is the first game tomorrow night, so as I'm at work it'll give me a little surprise to look forward to at the end of my shift.

On top of this, if I find myself with a luxury transfer in the coming weeks I'll be able to switch Brownhill to Garnacho. So novel ways of managing Salah's absence abound.

I'm also really looking forward to the Newcastle vs Man City game this weekend (thankfully I'm off work on the Saturday), which could be a great game. Hopefully Gordon and Alvarez both do well ..and we see some De Bruyne and Haaland.