THE elephant in the room is stamping its feet and trumpeting loudly.
With an ownership of 61.9%, Erling Haaland (£7.5m) is the most-selected player in Dream Team right now.
And so far, Manchester City’s new No9 has justified his popularity having scored three goals and provided one assist in his three outings at the start of this season.
Add in a deserved Star Man award against West Ham and the 22-year-old has amassed 28 points at this stage – only Gabriel Jesus (£5.3m) has more (29).
However, one of the conditions promised to Haaland when he negotiated his contract with City was that his minutes would be managed.
The Norway international was dogged with injuries during his last season with Borussia Dortmund, missing 16 fixtures in all and frequently played when only half fit.
There is a sense that Haaland’s gangly frame needs to have its workload managed to some degree, especially given the explosive nature of his acceleration which can be demanding on muscles and joints.
If recent quotes from Pep Guardiola are anything to go by, Haaland’s first rest of the campaign may be upon Dream Team gaffers sooner than they would like.
“Last season he [Haaland] didn’t play 90 minutes because he was injured,” the decorated tactician told reporters. “The physios and doctors did an incredible job since he arrived to avoid injuries.
“Now he has one game a week. I tell you now when we have games every three days that Erling will not play, I will play Julian [Alvarez]. When we start with games every three days, everyone is going to play.”
City will pull double duty in Game Week 4 as they host Crystal Palace this coming Saturday before welcoming Nottingham Forest to the Etihad on Wednesday.
They’ll then travel to Aston Villa the following Saturday (Game Week 5) making it three games in the space of eight days for the defending champions.
Assuming Guardiola is true to his word, Dream Team bosses can expect Alvarez to lead the line in place of Haaland in at least one of those fixtures – Forest seems most likely but second-guessing City line-ups is always a dangerous game.
Whether Haaland’s backers should take any drastic action is up for debate but given he’s plundered so many points already it seems reasonable that Dream Team managers will just have to contend with rotation.
If he continues to provide healthy returns despite sitting out the odd game then City’s rotation won’t be much of an issue.
Last season, Riyad Mahrez (£5.1m) finished as the second-best midfielder despite the fact he started just 15 league games out of a possible 38.
Obviously, Dream Team managers want their players to feature in as many games as possible but overreacting to a Haaland benching could be problematic.
Focus on his returns, not his minutes.
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