Should you sell Liverpool's Mohamed Salah after tough season start? - FPL dilemma solved

For many Fantasy Premier League players, Mohamed Salah was the first player on the team sheet this season, and perhaps the only man who never left the draft until the final squad was submitted. But now, four matches in, his form is causing some concern – but is it really time to move on?

Salah is still scoring – two goals and an assist this far – but he’s leaving it late, with all three of his contributions coming at the very death of matches, and he’s cut a less threatening and impressive figure for Liverpool. There’s no question that he’s in a lull, but still he’s putting up points. So how do we know whether to trust the eye test or the fact that he’s still finding ways to get the ball in the back of the net?

How is Mohamed Salah playing compared to last season?

Last season, Salah put up a record-breaking 344 points in the FPL off the back of 29 goals and 18 assists, his best Premier League season yet. He’s managed eight consecutive seasons in which he’s scored over 200 points, and is on track to do it yet again. But the eye test isn’t quite so flattering this time around.

In 2024/25, Salah averaged 0.67 expected goals per 90 minutes and 0.38 expected assists. This time around, those figures have plummeted to 0.28xG and 0.13xA respectively.

His actual scoring rate has dropped by a third and his assist rate by nearly half. The sample size is small but as it stands, he’s set for a season that would be great for a £10m midfielder, but which doesn’t necessarily justify his price tag of £14.5m, the highest in the game.

Of course, it’s still very much early days as far as the 2025/26 season goes. It’s not as though Salah hasn’t had slow periods before, and he managed just two goals and one assist in his last nine Premier League matches last season as well. He has always, ultimately, justified his price tag even if he endures leaner patches like any other player.

READ MORE: Our FPL expert’s perfect early wildcard team

But the fact that he finished last season poorly and has then started this season badly (by his standards) is a cause for justifiable concern. He’s 33, and has to slow down eventually. Are we watching that now?

A largely poor game against Burnley, salvaged only by a late penalty, is a genuine worry. Burnley have had the worst defence in the league so far this season in terms of allowing the opposition chances, and while three sides have conceded more, their xG allowed of 9.0 is the worst in the division by a long way. It’s the kind of game Salah should be able to dominate.

But slightly stilted outings against Arsenal, Newcastle United and Bournemouth aren’t quite as worrying. In this early stage of the season, they represent three of the four best defences in the Premier League by the same metric, with Liverpool the other side in the top four in terms of chances allowed to the opposition. Those aren’t bad defences.

The overall stats suggest that it’s right to be worried. Salah isn’t playing as well as he was for so much of last season. The lateness of his contributions probably shouldn’t be a major factor – after all, a goal scored late is no less valuable than one scored early – but in his next three fixtures he faces the next two best defences thus far in Chelsea and Crystal Palace.

Should you sell Salah in FPL?

As it stands, the sample size of poor performances is so much smaller than Salah’s proven track record that it’s probably a little early to panic – but as long as he isn’t scoring like a £14.5m, there will always be the suspicion that those millions could be spent more efficiently elsewhere, especially when there are so many cheap midfielders scoring freely.

There’s also every chance that he won’t start smashing goals in over the next few games. Liverpool’s fixtures are of a relatively mixed difficulty with few ‘easy’ matches on paper until around Gameweek 12 – or Gameweek 13 if you believe Nottingham Forest will continue to have a strong defence under Ange Postecoglou – when things get rather more straightforward by Premier League standards.

That means that there is every argument for selling him now in order to buy other players and looking to bring him back in November, a move that may well require careful planning or a wildcard given the price hikes from any other midfielder back up to Salah.

On the other hand, Salah is still scoring points. He tends to come back around to top form again before too long, and the sample size on his relatively form is still small. Selling Salah has a very high chance to come back to bite a player, and he’s still the fifth-highest scoring player in the game.

Of the obvious players you would sign given the money gained by selling Salah, only Erling Haaland is in completely convincing form, and Manchester City play Arsenal next – the best defence in the country, so far. Cole Palmer scored at the weekend but has been shaky for some time. Bukayo Saka is injured. When so many cheap players are scoring regularly, it makes sense to use the money saved by having them on the players who score more than anyone else, even if they aren’t doing so all that efficiently for the price. Salah is precisely that player.

So while selling Salah isn’t as crazy of an idea as it may have seemed at the start of the season, there’s still every argument for holding on a little longer, especially with a Merseyside derby to come next weekend. After that, if he’s still off the boil, moving to Haaland makes plenty of sense. Until then, Salah is still scoring more points than most midfielders and history suggests that he’ll score plenty more.