Dream Team’s big two deliver as Haaland and Salah bag braces – but bargain defender hits huge haul in GW12

YES, they make up two of the top three most expensive players in the game.

But GameWeek 12 showed that, no matter how frustrating seeing your big money purchases flopping against the lower sides can be, you must stick to your guns when it comes to the superstar buys.

Haaland and Salah did the business for the big spenders

Erling Haaland kicked off the previous game week with a home game against Bournemouth, where plenty will have pinned their hopes on him.

After just a 45 minute appearance, 1 point for that game and coming away with injury concern, Haaland fired in 15 points at home to Young Boys and a tremendous 17 points in that bonkers game at Chelsea on Sunday.

His two goals and one assist against the resurgent Blues showed that any game he plays in should be treated like a Bournemouth at home game – of course, no offence is intended…

That’s the state of play when it comes to the big Norwegian. He had a “cold” start to the season, judged purely on the fact he was red hot at the start of his maiden campaign last year.

In his last five games – which included Chelsea, a Manchester derby and two Champions League games – he’s hit a double-figure point haul in four of them, making it remarkable that 12.8% of managers still go without him in attack – even at the £7.7m fee.

Salah and Tsimikas both bagged 14 points in win over Brentford

That’s £1.1m more than Mohamed Salah, who hasn’t quite hit the heights he has in previous years but remains the second top points scorer in Dream Team.

That makes him dangerous, knowing that his numbers could explode at any minute.

Might that be now? Salah’s two goals against Brentford ended a five-game single-figure point haul for the Egyptian (14 vs Brentford), and catapulted him ahead of Bukayo Saka (£6.5m) in the season standings to date.

Haaland and Salah might well just be warming up, so Pep Guardiola and Jurgen Klopp will be hoping there isn’t a temperature drop for the pair during this international break – when they meet for Manchester City vs Liverpool on the Premier League return…

Honourable mentions of the weekend include Kostas Tsimikas who joined Salah on 14 points in the one match after his two assists and clean sheet in that win over the Bees. A great cheap alternative while Andy Robertson remains out until the new year.

While Jarrod Bowen (£5.2m) struck 9 points for the second successive Premier League outing in the Nottingham Forest win – which sees him go fourth in the season points tally.

And just 0.4% of managers benefitted from Victor Lindelof’s (£2.1m) heroics in the weekend win over Luton.

An impressive 13 points he amassed, with Erik ten Hag still unsure what defence to put out. A clean sheet and winning goal might well mean we’ll be seeing more of Lindelof and his backers will be hoping that’s the case.

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