Liverpool face Newcastle United at St James’ Park on Monday bidding to build on their productive start to the 2025/26 Premier League season.
The Reds triumphed 4-2 at home to Bournemouth courtesy of goals by Hugo Ekitike, Cody Cakpo, Federico Chiesa and Mohamed Salah.
The quartet inevitably recorded the most points in Liverpool’s squad for Fantasy Premier League (FPL) players who picked them in their teams.
However, the upcoming run of fixtures are a tricky conundrum for FPL players, particularly where Salah is concerned.
The Egyptian forward finished last season with 344 points, making him an essential pick for anyone who was serious about winning their respective FPL competition.
Salah weighed in with eight points against Bournemouth, with his late goal salvaging what threatened to be a disappointing start to the season for him.
Intriguingly, that tally has immediately put him on course to break the 300-points barrier if he replicates it in each game this season.
That would exceed what the Spreadex Sports betting experts have forecast Salah will deliver this season. They have projected he will score between 224 and 236 points.
Many FPL players will keep faith with Salah throughout the season, regardless of the perceived difficulty of Liverpool’s fixtures.
Digging deeper into the statistics highlights why that could be a risky tactic for FPL players. Here are their next ten Premier League matches:
- Newcastle United (A)
- Arsenal (H)
- Burnley (A)
- Everton (H)
- Crystal Palace (A)
- Chelsea (A)
- Manchester United (H)
- Brentford (A)
- Aston Villa (H)
- Manchester City (A)
According to the Fixture Difficulty Rating (FDR) algorithm, just two of Liverpool’s next ten fixtures have a difficulty rating of two (Burnley and Everton).
On the sliding one to five scale, the remaining eight matches are equally split between three and four in terms of their difficulty.
Despite that apparent red flag, it is worth noting that Liverpool won five, drew three and lost one of the corresponding fixtures in 2024/25.
The only team they did not face was Burnley. However, the Reds triumphed in each of their three away games against newly-promoted clubs last season.
Where things get trickier for FPL players is Salah’s record last season against the teams they are scheduled to face over the next ten Gameweeks.
He bagged just three goals and two assists in the corresponding fixtures last term, highlighting why FPL players must tread carefully with him.
Some FPL experts argue that omitting Salah and his Liverpool teammates for the upcoming games against Newcastle United and Arsenal is a sensible move.
While there may be some merit to that viewpoint, Salah is perfectly capable of adding to his points tally over the next couple of games.
While Newcastle can be tricky opponents at St James’ Park, off-field issues surrounding striker Alexander Isak are not helping the mood at the club.
Salah has tallied ten goals and eight assists in 17 previous league games against Newcastle and will fancy his chances of enhancing that record on Monday.
His record of 11 goals and four assists in 16 league outings against Arsenal also suggests that leaving him out of FPL teams is a dangerous tactic.
Although it may be tempting to be selective about which games to feature Salah in FPL, his overall record demonstrates that it is generally best to keep picking him.
Rotating him as captain with other players does have some merit, although that strategy has been known to backfire for thousands of FPL players.
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