FPL: Countdown to GW9 - Injuries, wildcards and the Mohamed Salah dilemma

It’s always great seeing our FPL assets do well during an International break.

Starting matches, playing well and scoring goals all seem to help a player’s momentum when they return to club football. However, international breaks also come with worry.

Has my guy played too many minutes? Is his late return back from South America going to affect his chances of a start on Saturday and, most importantly, is my player injured?

Over the last fortnight, we have seen popular FPL assets like Nathan Patterson (4.1), Lucas Digne (4.7), Alexander Isak (7.1) and Ivan Perisic (5.6) pick up injuries. Make sure you check out Friday’s press conferences to check their status for this weekend, but Isak is looking like he will miss a couple of weeks and Digne is expected to be out for a while. 

What to do with Mohamed Salah (12.9) is a big question for me this week. This isn’t about Salah scoring points in the next few weeks, it’s firstly, are there other players in the same price band that will outscore him and, secondly, is he a viable caption option over the next couple of weeks?

I don’t think Salah is a sell, but I’m not sure he’s an instant buy, either. Sure, Brighton is possibly a nice fixture at Anfield in GW9 but Arsenal and Manchester City after that are tough and for me, Kevin De Bruyne (12.3), Heung-minSon (11.7) and Raheem Sterling (10.0) are all worth consideration.

My loose plan is to sell De Bruyne and bring Salah in for GW12 when Man City don’t play but, if De Bruyne is firing, I might delay that move.

This is the first time for as long as I can remember that I’m not scared of not owning Salah. I should caveat this with the fact that I think Salah is an outstanding captain option this weekend, with Erling Haaland playing