Should You Keep Dominic Solanke? FPL Salah Addresses Three Burning Team Selection Dilemmas In His Gameweek 10 Tips

Abdul Rehman (FPL Salah) has teamed up with SportsCasting to provide you with another round of FPL tips for Gameweek 10 and beyond.

Every week FPL Salah will be providing you with insight and advice to gear you up, continuing with his Fantasy Premier League tips for Gameweek 10.

This is his 18th season playing FPL, and he’s finished in the top 1,000 four times, with 14 finishes in the top 50,000. He also writes weekly FPL articles for The Athletic and Fantasy Football Hub.

This week, FPL Salah will be presenting three burning questions ahead of Gameweek 10, which can help you shoot up the ranks over the coming weeks.

FPL Gameweek 10 Tips

Should you Keep Dominic Solanke?

Dominic Solanke’s stats over the last three have been quite worrying, as he’s only managed an xG of 0.13 while Spurs have played Brighton, West Ham, and Crystal Palace, scoring seven goals in those games.

In that period he has only managed an assist, but I do think it’s too small a sample size to worry about just yet, as over the season has an xG of 3.6.

However, Spurs have been good in attack over the season with 18 goals (third) and an xG of 17.76 (second). Solanke is the number 9 for an attacking side and has two home games next against Aston Villa (H) and Ipswich (H).

The ex-Bournemouth forward has a 45% chance to score at any time in Gameweek 10, and Tottenham are the third favourites of any Premier League team to score 2.5+ goals (36%) this weekend.

Considering these factors, it doesn’t make him an easy sell despite the recent blanks for the 27-year-old.

I think it’s totally fine to hold Solanke for the next two gameweeks and then reassess. He scored 19 goals for Bournemouth last season so we know he is an established Premier League forward.

I would only consider selling him if you were downgrading him to a budget forward and you needed the funds to make significant upgrade elsewhere.

Best Budget Forward to buy

Chris Wood (£6.4m), Mathues Cunha (£6.5m), and Raul Jimenez (£5.7m) are very popular options at the moment, and rightly so.

All three are great picks and have good fixtures on the horizon. Out of the three, Jimenez’s underlying numbers stick out the most. He has an xG of 3.42 in only six starts, whereas Wood has an xG of 3.68 in nine starts and Cunha has 2.08 in eight starts.

The Fulham forward also has the most shots in the box (20) out of the three. Cunha has 19 and Wood has managed 17.

Here are the fixtures over the next five for their respective teams:

• Fulham – Brentford (H), Crystal Palace (A), Wolves (H), Spurs (A), Brighton (H)
• Nottingham Forest – West Ham (H), Newcastle (H), Arsenal (A), Ipswich (H), Manchester City (A)
• Wolves – Crystal Palace (H), Southampton (H), Fulham (A), Bournemouth (H), Everton (A)

Although Wood has the most goals and FPL points, he does have the toughest fixtures from the three, and Cunha has the best. Although if you have eight good attackers, then buying Wood shouldn’t be an issue as you can bench him for his tough fixtures.

All three should be on penalties too. Wood took the latest one for Forest in the league and Andreas Pereira missed the last one for Fulham so Jimenez might assume duties now.

Hwang Hee-Chan and Pablo Sarabia are usually ahead of Cunha in the pecking order but the former is injured and the latter has only played 73 minutes this season. Therefore, there is a good chance Cunha will be the penalty taker now.

As mentioned earlier, all three are great FPL options, but if I were to pick one, I think I would go for Cunha due to the better fixtures over the short and long term. Wolves have had some tough fixtures in the first nine weeks so his stats and output should increase
now that the fixtures ease up.

Jimenez would be my second choice, as he looks great value at his price and looks nailed in the starting XI.

Wood will no doubt score well over the season, but he has overperformed so far and won’t continue to score at his current rate. I just feel the boat may have sailed with him now.

Is it worth switching Haaland to Salah?

Erling Haaland may be the leagues top goal scorer with 11 goals, but there is no escaping the fact he only has one in the past four league games, against Newcastle, Fulham, Wolves and Southampton, the latter two currently being bottom and second-bottom of the table respectively.

Manchester City’s fixtures over the next four also aren’t the easiest, as they come up against Bournemouth (A), Brighton (A), Spurs (H), and Liverpool (A).

It is worth noting Haaland did rack up his highest xG (2.33) figure of the season last gameweek against Southampton and his second ever highest for Man City since he joined.

The Norwegian was unfortunate not to get a big haul, and it’s not like he isn’t getting the chances. We also know that his output rate is only going to increase rather than stay as it is or get worse.

I don’t think there is a right or wrong answer on whether to sell him for Mohamed Salah or not. I am certain he will score well going forward, but whether he is worth £15.4m is another question.

There is definitely merit in switching him to the Egyptian if you have at least two free transfers — his fixtures are great over the next three, as Liverpool play Brighton (H), Aston Villa (H), and Southampton (A).

I wouldn’t advise taking hits to get rid of Haaland and would only consider it if you could do it for free.

It depends on your team structure, how easily you can make the switch, and your risk appetite. Haaland will still be very highly owned, so if you like betting against the pack, then this may be the move for you.