This article is part of our Sweeping the Floor series.
We published an article yesterday about why people who feel like Harry Kane is constantly disappointing them in cash games on DraftKings are correct in their thinking, which prompted some discussion in our DFS soccer subscriber Discord, including a comment about whether I would be publishing a follow up article about Mohamed Salah this season.
I have been clear in the past that I don't think about floor whenever I consider Salah in cash games for the same reasons I no longer do about Kane. The slight difference is that I long thought Kane had a higher floor and felt that would be enough at his usually high salaries, something I've recently decided is wrong. Salah has a strong floor as well, but when you're the most expensive, or one of the three or five most expensive, floors aren't nearly as important as ceilings.
My public opinion on Kane is probably a bit extreme, though I'm still waiting for anyone without a Spurs avatar or Twitter header to disagree with me, and while I've long been a Salah fanboy, neither of those aspects affect whether I roster them in a cash lineup. They are both goal-dependent players with solid floors who generally make or break a lineup because of their high costs.
So, like I did yesterday, it was only right to review Salah's season to see if he's been as disappointing as a cash-game play as Kane. Unfortunately, this isn't a simple apples-to-apples comparison because one of the
We published an article yesterday about why people who feel like Harry Kane is constantly disappointing them in cash games on DraftKings are correct in their thinking, which prompted some discussion in our DFS soccer subscriber Discord, including a comment about whether I would be publishing a follow up article about Mohamed Salah this season.
I have been clear in the past that I don't think about floor whenever I consider Salah in cash games for the same reasons I no longer do about Kane. The slight difference is that I long thought Kane had a higher floor and felt that would be enough at his usually high salaries, something I've recently decided is wrong. Salah has a strong floor as well, but when you're the most expensive, or one of the three or five most expensive, floors aren't nearly as important as ceilings.
My public opinion on Kane is probably a bit extreme, though I'm still waiting for anyone without a Spurs avatar or Twitter header to disagree with me, and while I've long been a Salah fanboy, neither of those aspects affect whether I roster them in a cash lineup. They are both goal-dependent players with solid floors who generally make or break a lineup because of their high costs.
So, like I did yesterday, it was only right to review Salah's season to see if he's been as disappointing as a cash-game play as Kane. Unfortunately, this isn't a simple apples-to-apples comparison because one of the stipulations for the Kane analysis was whether he was on a slate with Manchester City and/or Liverpool; obviously Salah is going to be on every Liverpool slate. A further examination also saw that Liverpool have already been on six showdown slates and Salah came off the bench in a prime matchup against Burnley, reducing the number of opportunities we could have rostered him in classic cash games.
Looking at the game logs, it's clear that Salah has been a pretty big disappointment on short slates, failing to reach even 8.00 fantasy points in slates with three or fewer matches. Looking deeper, his best short-slate performance actually came against Manchester City, while he was a huge disappointment in the Merseyside derby and last weekend's match against Manchester United; however, that's one he may have been faded on anyway because Arsenal were facing Southampton and Chelsea were against Brighton.
That being said, he's been mostly great on main Saturday classic slates without Manchester City, though it's only happened three times: Aug. 25 against Brighton (22.25 fantasy points, including 12.25 floor points), Oct. 27 against Cardiff City (31.75, 9.75) and Nov. 3 against Arsenal (6.25, 6.25). However, he's also been strong on slates that include Manchester City, scoring in three of four opportunities and reaching 9.25 fantasy points in his lone goal-less match. Unfortunately, a quick look at Manchester City's opponents will show why we may not have rostered Salah that day in favor of Man City stacks: Sep. 22 at Cardiff City, Sep. 29 v. Brighton, Oct. 20 v. Burnley, and Nov. 24 at West Ham.
As mentioned, it's not really a fair comparison because the sample sizes are so small, but if you've made it this far in the DraftKings fantasy soccer season and hate Kane but love Salah, there are understandable reasons why that's the case.
