We explore the best options for the Fantasy Premier League captain for Gameweek 2 and reveal the results of our captain poll and our captain metric – who will you choose this Gameweek?

BEFORE WE BEGIN: If you haven’t already seen, we released an article last year introducing the new ‘Captain Metric’, which explains the concept fully and it can be viewed here > https://fplconnect.blog/2018/08/07/the-captain-metric-explained-2/

It was a Gameweek 1 to remember for most FPL managers, with the average a very healthy 53 points however, the top captaincy choices didn’t produce much for us, apart from the irrepressible Mo Salah of course.

Even then, in a game Liverpool won 4-0, Mohamed Salah, captained by 34.5% of managers, only produced the 1 goal for us with once again, no bonus points, leaving us reasonably satisfied with an 8 point return.

But at £13m, given the score, and perhaps the nature of the high scoring Gameweek skewing our perception of the return a little, perhaps we’ll be slightly disappointed with that score when the dust completely settles, especially given that his counterpart on the other side, Mané, smashed in a 16pt return for £3.5m less.

Harry Kane was the other heavily backed player, with a huge 17.7% trusting the World Cup Golden Boot winner with their armband, despite him looking sluggish at the World Cup and having an extended rest due to his participation in it.

He, as suspected, produced a very sluggish performance against Newcastle and not only didn’t produce any returns, but got himself booked for good measure, meaning a 1 pt return for those showing faith in him.

Elsewhere, Agüero (8% backed), Firmino (8% backed) and Aubameyang (4% backed) also disappointed with only Firmino returning any points with his assist for Mané’s offside goal.

Looking ahead to Gameweek 2 and managers who own both Agüero and Salah face a very difficult decision. Let’s see if we can break things down for you…

Results of our poll

Sergio Agüero – 48% of the votes

Underlying attacking stats last Gameweek:

7 penalty area touches

3 total goal attempts.

2 goal attempts inside the box.

1 big chance.

0 goals.

0 assists.

Mohamed Salah – 43% of the votes

Underlying attacking stats last Gameweek:

7 penalty area touches

4 total goal attempts.

3 goal attempts inside the box.

2 big chances.

1 goal.

0 assists.

Harry Kane – 5% of the votes

Underlying attacking stats last Gameweek:

4 penalty area touches

2 total goal attempts.

2 goal attempts inside the box.

0 big chances.

0 goals.

0 assists.

Differential captain options

Raheem Sterling – Sterling returned ahead of schedule and looked as fresh as a daisy. He went about his business in typical fashion in the Arsenal game operating from the left and scored a fantastic goal from just outside the box. He registered more penalty area touches (11) than any other player in GW1 and ahead of a plum fixture vs Huddersfield and at just 2.6% ownership at the time of writing, he could be a huge differential captain to have. Christian Eriksen – Palace comfortably dispatched Fulham 2-0, with 12 shots and 2 big chances – even without some players operating at 100%, Spurs should be able to beat Fulham comfortably at Wembley. If they do and score 2/3 or more goals, then Eriksen will undoubtedly be at the heart of it, just as he was in their 2-1 win over Newcastle – albeit without actually registering any returns – being the most creative player in GW1 with 5 chances created. Sadio Mané – Again, as I argued last week, if you are without Salah, then this man should definitely be in your considerations for the armband. He was rather fortunate to hit the big 16 point haul, given that his second goal was offside, but nevertheless, it highlights his danger and irrespective of the offside goal, he is capable of these kind of explosive returns, as Salah is. He matched Salah for total goal attempts (4), but all 4 of his attempts came inside the box, whereas 3 of Salah’s were inside the box. With the focus for captain likely to be on Aguero/Salah, Mané’s captaincy % should still be under 10%, making him a fantastic differential captain.

The Captain Metric Says…

… Mohamed Salah (but only by our identified kicker).

Before we go on, the ‘key’ explanations in this image, represents what we normally do in terms of which Gameweeks we look at, but given that we didn’t want to base our historical stats on data from last season, we only have 1 Gameweek to get our data, so it is based on GW1 2018/19 data only, and will be based on all the available 18/19 GWs until we hit GW6, and then it will be the last 5 GWs again as displayed here.

So the metric actually produces a 3-way draw between the 3 top candidates for GW2 and in the event of a tie, we have identified ‘Player form’ as the kicker, but as we state in our explanation of the metric (link at the top of the article), this is a subjective choice that some may not agree with for example, some may believe that ‘Fixture difficulty’ is the most important.

So regarding the kicker, that is completely up to you, but we believe that ‘Player form’ is the most important and based on that, Salah wins out.

Kane wins on 2 of our relevant statistics, but we can rule him out because his expected performance (0.15 AKA xGI) was so poor, which gives him the win on the xGI Delta stat (-0.15), as his actual performance of 0 goals or assists was the closest to what he was expected to do in comparison to the others who were expected to do more because of goal attempts and big chances received etc.

So in more simple terms, he underperformed the least in comparison to the others, but that was only because his expected performance was so poor.

Breaking this down between Salah and Agüero, and the metric is telling us that Agüero is more likely to score (odds from bookies) down to an easier fixture, but Salah is in better form (expected and actual performance was better than Agüero) and is playing in a team that created more big chances (but again, common sense is needed here as City played away to Arsenal and Liverpool played West Ham at home).

My view

As I state at the start of the article, this is a very difficult one for owners with both Agüero and Salah.

I think if you don’t own one of those players, then I’d be advocating captaining the other – simple.

I own both and the way I see it, is that it comes down to two things;

Whether you think Agüero will start. Whether you think Agüero can score more points v Huddersfield in circa 70 mins v Salah against Palace in circa 85 mins if he does start.

If you don’t think he starts, then that’s your answer (Salah), if you do think he starts, then it comes down to your own personal view of what he can do in circa 70 mins vs what Salah can do in circa 85 mins.

My view, is that Agüero v Huddersfield at home has the potential to get me more points in circa 70 mins than Salah will in circa 85 mins against Palace. So right now, my choice is Sergio Agüero unless Pep gives us any hints in the presser – which of course is very unlikely but I will be listening intently for any hints just in case.

If you’re struggling to make the above decision in your head, then use the metric and simply ask yourself, ‘which of the relevant statistics do I feel is the most important when it comes to captaining a player?’ and then pick the kicker yourself.

If you’re looking to go differential with your captain, then I think Raheem Sterling is the ideal choice.

Stats obtained from fantasyfootballscout.co.uk