Last updated on October 14th, 2025
There is one thing in life that every Fantasy Footballer knows as they approach a new annual game calendar and that is get Norwegian giant and Manchester City goalscoring monster, Erling Haaland, into your squad at any cost – and yes the serial scoring freak carries an immense cost to your budget.
If fitting him in your team has not been possible, you have absolutely attempted to reach the same outcome by getting the Egyptian wizard and Liverpool star Mohamed Salah in there instead. If you managed to get both, it is like you have won the jackpot at an online ethereum casino and your strategy and patience would always pay off as the points begin racking up.
However, Salah has not won a lot of people many points yet so far this season, but he will come good. 25 year old Haaland has also been a “disappointment” for purists as the 46 capped (with 51 goals) attacker has started the 2025/26 domestic and European season slowly. Yes, slowly… compared to previous seasons. He has scored nine times in seven Premier League matches so far and he has failed to live up to his self set achievements in more recent years and Fantasy Footballers are paying for this. But are they?
Okay, he scored eleven goals in seven games in the 2022/23 season, and ten goals in seven last season and he remains three goals ahead of all chasers in the race for the Premier League Golden Boot for the campaign and in terms of the battle for the European Golden Shoe (who calls it a shoe? Nobody says pull up your tights and roll up your long sleeve vest!) he has 21 goals in 12 games when you include national duty for his homeland of Norway and that already puts him ahead of Kane and Frenchman Kylian Mbappe who represents Spanish La Liga giants Real Madrid.
So a “slow” start is still better than others, and he is yet to take a penalty, so anyone who does not have him in their team is missing the trickiest trick possible in fantasy land because even with Pep Guardiola’s tweaks to how Manchester City play, this lad is just going to keep scoring at a rate that puts others to shame.
There is more to it than that obviously, his usual English top flight rivals have not made the start to the campaign that they usually do and whilst that sees him as the front runner right now, it means if you are relying on them they just are not delivering. Fantasy points mean prizes, they mean bragging rights and whilst the risk of injury is an inevitable and ongoing risk in contact sport, he even has a good record on that front and the odd weeks that he does spend out of contention during a general season are more than made up by the amount of times he does find the back of the net.
Haaland is more than worth the hour of making the changes it might take to get him in if you have not already done so, but you will know better for next year – or you should.
