There is no verified “best” Salah-free Fantasy Premier League team for the completed 2025/26 season in the available published sources. The Premier League set a £100m squad budget and priced Mohamed Salah at £14.5m, but naming the highest-scoring valid team would require final player scores and an explicit squad, captaincy, bench and transfer model. This article explains what an AI prediction can responsibly say—and how to judge one—rather than inventing a lineup or presenting preseason advice as a result.
What does “best team” mean?
A prediction cannot identify a best team until it defines what it is optimizing. A squad chosen for the opening Gameweek could be different from one chosen for an opening fixture run or for total points across a season. “Best” might also mean maximum expected points, or best expected points per £1m spent. Those objectives do not necessarily produce the same squad.
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For a credible Salah-free prediction, the model should state its forecast date and horizon, use player-level projections for that period, and identify how it handles expected minutes, injuries, fixtures, captaincy, the bench and transfers. It must also enforce the game’s budget, position and club limits. Without those inputs and a reproducible calculation, a list of popular players is not an AI-verified optimal squad.
Why leaving out Salah mattered in 2025/26
The Premier League announced a £100m budget for 2025/26 and set Salah’s price at £14.5m, making him the most expensive midfielder in FPL at the time. Excluding him therefore changes how a manager allocates a substantial share of the budget; it does not by itself prove that the remaining funds will earn more points. Any lineup claiming to show that advantage should identify its replacements, prices and forecast assumptions.
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In its 11 August 2025 preseason guide, The Scout listed Erling Haaland at £14.0m alongside Salah and advised against selecting both. That was guidance about fitting two premium players into a constrained budget, not evidence that every manager should omit Salah or that doing so was optimal over the completed season. The advice and prices are documented in the Premier League’s 2025/26 squad-selection guide.
2025/26 rules that an AI forecast needed to account for
Defensive contributions
The Premier League introduced two points for reaching a defensive-contribution threshold: 10 contributions for defenders and 12 for midfielders and forwards. Ball recoveries counted toward the threshold for midfielders and forwards. A projection that ignores this rule may mis-rank players, particularly when comparing players in different positions.
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The assist definition was simplified. The Premier League said that applying the revised definition to the previous season would have produced 41 additional Fantasy assists. That figure is a counterfactual based on the prior season, not an observed 2025/26 total. For the announcement and full rule context, see the Premier League’s 2025/26 launch notice.
Other changes
The season also changed elements of the Bonus Points System, including points related to saves, goal-line clearances, penalties scored and successful tackles. Extra free transfers were topped up to a maximum of five in Gameweek 16 to help managers plan around AFCON departures. A season-long prediction therefore needs the 2025/26 rules and a clear transfer policy, rather than a generic points model.
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How to assess a claimed AI-generated Salah-free squad
The Premier League’s preseason Scout guidance identifies useful decision factors: form, fixtures, prices, likely starting lineups, value picks, captaincy and team structure. A model-generated squad should make its treatment of those factors visible instead of relying on the “AI” label.
- Horizon and objective: Is this an opening-Gameweek XI, a short-term squad or a full-season projection? Is it maximizing expected points or value per £1m?
- Budget allocation: Which priced players replace the £14.5m Salah slot, and does the proposed squad remain within budget?
- Minutes and availability: What date were injuries and likely starting roles assessed? A high points-per-match estimate is less useful if a player is unlikely to start.
- Squad construction: Does the selection obey formation, club and positional limits, and does it specify the bench and captain?
- Rules: Does the forecast apply the 2025/26 scoring system, including defensive contributions and the revised assist definition?
- Evaluation: If the claim is retrospective, does it show the final data and explain whether it assumes a fixed squad or allows transfers?
These distinctions matter because a season-total optimal XI chosen with hindsight is not the same thing as a preseason prediction that a manager could actually have used.
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What published AI and FPL tools establish
Fantasy Football Fix’s AI Assistant Manager demonstration shows a suggested squad excluding both Salah and Haaland. It is an example of a tool-generated proposal, not evidence that the squad was the highest-scoring Salah-free team. The page promotes Premium Plus; its page alone does not establish current terms or an affiliate relationship.
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1Scan for outdated or missing drivers - takes under a minute2Clear out junk files and repair common Windows errors3Fix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitchesPublished forecasting work shows why a valid answer needs both prediction and optimization. Ramezani’s 2025 paper describes integer programming for FPL selection under budget, squad-composition and captain constraints, using 2023/24 season data. Groos’s 2025 OpenFPL paper describes position-specific ensemble forecasts using public FPL and Understat data from 2020/21 through 2023/24, with prospective evaluation on 2024/25 data. These methods are relevant context, but neither paper supplies the final 2025/26 Salah-free optimal XI. See Ramezani’s paper and Groos’s OpenFPL paper.
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Can we name the best Salah-free team for 2025/26?
Not from the cited evidence. The official launch and selection pages document preseason prices, guidance and rule changes; they do not identify the completed season’s highest-scoring valid Salah-free squad. Establishing that retrospective result would require final player data and a declared optimization setup, including formation, captain and bench treatment, transfers and time horizon.
So the defensible answer is narrower: AI can propose a Salah-free squad when given a defined objective and constraints, and tools have demonstrated that kind of selection. But a prediction is conditional, and a preseason suggestion must not be mistaken for a verified full-season winner.
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