You are highlighting where I am really struggling to come up with a strategy. Haaland is in unique territory where he is currently in 62.9% of teams and is C or VC in 60.3% of teams - I am still trying to get my head around why someone wouldn’t at least VC him if he was in their team. These are figures that would normally tempt me to go against the grain. However, that opening fixture scares me too much, so I feel that I need to follow the crowd.
Therefore that brings me to my next conundrum. He is that good that everyone is picking him. So, if he is that good, why do we need more than one more premium in our team as a backup C option as he is likely to always be VC or C? Surely we can search for a bigger pool of strong, but not elite, talent without needing to punt on cheap contenders or risking massive price drops. We can then just correct the midpricers down, which feels like it would be easier than correcting a poor basement price choice.
I don’t have an answer, and am just trying to think this through!
It's all about risk / reward. When a guy can score 5 goals in a game, you don't want to miss out, especially when most will VC / C him.
You have to follow the herd with the biggest gun. It's not the place to look for differentials.
If he had a tough early run, the risk would be less, but City actually have one of the easiest runs.
Without European games (other than the Super Cup), he should see lots of time over the next 7 GWs.
I'm also able to fit in 4 big guns with his big price tag, and the others aren't that enticing given what we're seen in pre-season.
Kane could be going, so not interested in him yet.
KDB isn't 100%, so no interest in him either.
Odegaard could be nice, but no one is really onto him, so he won't hurt me too much.
TAA and Trippier have tough fixtures, not really shown they can keep a clean sheet, and TAA will likely have less set pieces with Szoboszlai coming in.
So for now, I think I'll just follow the herd. If people don't have a loop, then if he fails, that could be my differential.