Four ways to build your FPL squad

There’s £100m to spend and you need 15 players – it should be fairly simple, right?

But Fantasy Premier League managers around the world will be tinkering with different formations, taking Mohamed Salah out, putting Erling Haaland in and then swapping back again.

Our experts – Pras, FPL Heisenberg, Gianni Buttice and Holly Shand – are here to guide you with four different strategies for structuring your squad.

By ignoring Mohamed Salah and Erling Haaland – the two most expensive players in the game – you’re able to spread the funds round and build a more balanced squad, while still having premium picks such as Cole Palmer and Bukayo Saka who could match their output.

This draft is with a 3-4-3 formation in mind, benching the cheap players (Martin Dubravka, Granit Xhaka, Gabriel Gudmundsson and Reinildo) giving you a power front seven players with no weak link.

Wirtz is part of the same attack as Salah. That means that if Liverpool score big and your mini-league rivals all have points from Salah, Wirtz is more than likely to be scoring highly too.

Building a 15-man Bench Boost squad in gameweek one is sensible for several reasons.

First, this is the only time you can effectively play a Wildcard and Bench Boost in the same gameweek. If one of the players in your team is injured a few hours before Friday’s deadline simply replace them and start the 15 you think have the best chance of playing.

Second, getting this chip out of the way means in the future an injury to your fifth defender or third striker isn’t something to worry about – they can be left on the bench. If planning a later Bench Boost, more transfers will be used to “fix the bench”. In my experience it becomes a major headache.

Third, early in the season there are fewer midweek games. Once European football and international breaks come round so does squad rotation, making it harder to find 15 starters in the same week.

Finally, it could help you get off to a good start, propelling you up the early rankings.

Most FPL teams have three or four players priced over £8.5m but this big-hitter draft gets six premiums into the side and covers the best attacks in the league.

It is a team full of talismans who play 90 minutes, take set-pieces and start the season with good form from the summer.

To get Erling Haaland and Mohamed Salah in the same team means too many compromises elsewhere and, even with this draft I have avoided using both those players, who combined take up £28.5m of your £100m budget.

I am very tempted to start the season with the two most expensive players in the game: Mohamed Salah and Erling Haaland, using 28.5% of the £100m budget.

Both are notorious for having quick starts to the season, having never blanked in gameweek one. Salah averages 12.25 points per game on opening weekend, with Haaland on 11.

The introduction of defensive contribution points to the scoring matrix gives greater utility to the cheaper defenders and midfielders, making the double-up affordable.