We explore the best options for the Fantasy Premier League captain for Gameweek 22 and reveal the results of our captain poll and our new 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 ‘FPL Captain Metric’, which explains the concept fully and it can be viewed here >> https://fplconnect.blog/2018/08/07/the-captain-metric-explained-2/

Results of our poll

The following underlying statistics are taken from FantasyFootballScout.co.uk. If you want to gain access to these stats yourself, register to become a member here >> https://members.fantasyfootballscout.co.uk/

Jamie Vardy – 53.1% of the votes

Underlying attacking stats the last 5 GWs (games where he was out injured/rested not included):

31 penalty area touches

14 total goal attempts.

13 goal attempts inside the box.

3 chances created (1 big chance)

4 big chances.

4 goals.

1 assist.

KDB – 17.7% of the votes

Underlying attacking stats the last 5 GWs:

22 penalty area touches.

16 total goal attempts.

6 goal attempts inside the box.

13 chances created (3 big chances)

0 big chances.

3 goals.

4 assists.

Sadio Mané – 15.2% of the votes

Underlying attacking stats the last 5 GWs (games where he was out injured/rested not included):

44 penalty area touches.

14 total goal attempts.

13 goal attempts inside the box.

8 chances created (2 big chances)

7 big chances.

3 goals.

4 assists.

Mohamed Salah – 14% of the votes

Underlying attacking stats the last 5 GWs (games where he was out injured/rested not included):

51 penalty area touches

23 total goal attempts.

20 goal attempts inside the box.

11 chances created (3 big chances)

5 big chances.

4 goals.

1 assist.

Marcus Rashford

Underlying attacking stats the last 5 GWs (games where he was out injured not included):

21 penalty area touches.

20 total goal attempts.

6 goal attempts inside the box.

4 chances created (0 big chance)

3 big chances.

2 goals.

0 assists.

Differential captain suggestion

Sergio Agüero – It’s not often that we get to call this man a differential in any regard, but that’s what he is right now at just 11% owned at the time of writing. In his first 7 Premier League games, Agüero had hit 8 goals and 3 assists amassing 59pts – a potentially huge differential player with the power to break templates and the meta selection.

With Aston Villa – who have conceded 17 big chances in the last 5 games – up next and having rested against Everton, Agüero might be a prime differential captain candidate that could send you shooting up the ranks if you’re lower down and looking for opportunities. City do have the Manchester Derby in the EFL Cup semi-final to contend with tomorrow (Tuesday 7th), but Tuesday to Sunday is plenty of time to recover so there’s every chance he starts both games.

Captain Metric

The winner of the metric is Sadio Mané.

Important Note:

*I have not been able to update the ‘Anytime goalscorer odds’ section due to no available odds. I will leave this as is for now and update when it becomes available but I suspect it will not change the overall outcome.

TheeGefloos from Sub-Reddit Fantasy PL, has contributed to the development of the new ‘rank order’ system where players are awarded points on the metric in an order from the best score, to the worst score at the bottom.

Example:

If player A and player B have the same points and both have the highest/best score for that particular stat, then they are awarded the highest amount of points (in this context, 4), but they then count for 2 ranks, as there is two players, which means that player C is awarded the 3rd rank and is thus awarded 2 points, rather than 3.

His profile on Reddit is here >> https://www.reddit.com/user/TheeGefloos

(Reliability %), basically gives us the percentage of games the player has provided a return (goal or assist) in out of the games he was available for selection (not injured) – so this includes games where the player has scored 0 because of being on the bench/rested, but not those where the player has scored 0 because he was injured or unavailable for some other reason, like personal circumstances for example. This can give us an idea of how likely the player is to return and how reliable he has been.

(Explosivity %), as the name suggests, gives us the percentage of games the player has ‘exploded in’, or in more accurate terms, has provided a double-figure return. In the same way as before, it can give us an idea of how likely a player is to return a double-figure haul and a clear view of how good he’s been at providing double-figure hauls in the past.

Breakdown of the metric:

Player form – Sadio Mané and Mohamed Salah have scored the most points of any of the candidates.

– Sadio Mané and Mohamed Salah have scored the most points of any of the candidates. Team form – Liverpool have created the most amount of big chances (17) of any of the candidates’ teams.

– Liverpool have created the most amount of big chances (17) of any of the candidates’ teams. Fixture difficulty – De Bruyne’s opponents, Aston Villa, have conceded the most big chances (17) of the other candidates’ opposition.

– De Bruyne’s opponents, Aston Villa, have conceded the most big chances (17) of the other candidates’ opposition. Likelihood of scoring – N/A.

– N/A. Expected goals/assists (xGI) – Sadio Mané has the highest expected goal involvement of all the candidates over the last 5 Gameweeks.

– Sadio Mané has the highest expected goal involvement of all the candidates over the last 5 Gameweeks. Home/Away Goal Conversion – Jamie Vardy has the highest goal conversion rate after scoring 8 goals from his 27 attempts at the King Power stadium.

– Jamie Vardy has the highest goal conversion rate after scoring 8 goals from his 27 attempts at the King Power stadium. Reliability % – Jamie Vardy has the highest reliability % having returned in 13 of his 19 games so far this year.

– Jamie Vardy has the highest reliability % having returned in 13 of his 19 games so far this year. Explosivity % – Jamie Vardy is the most explosive of the candidates having hit 6 double-figure hauls in his 19 games.

My View

(my personal take on things NOT to be taken as fact)

The metric suggests Sadio Mané for the captaincy and whilst there’s every chance he could return in this fixture, I have a feeling Mourinho is gonna set up in a way to simply not get beat, which he has done often in the past against the best teams and has had reasonable success with it too.

In his stints as Chelsea boss, he only lost 16% of his games against the ‘Top 6 teams’ in his first spell, and 20% in his second spell. Whilst in charge of Man United, he lost 44% of his matches against the ‘Top 6’ sides but the majority weren’t big defeats and he did manage to stifle the likes of Liverpool (3 draws), in fact, only Chelsea managed to score 3 or more goals against Jose’s United.

So we know he can stifle the big teams and I expect him to set his Spurs up in similar fashion when Klopp’s Liverpool come to town.

Jamie Vardy will likely be very well backed if he’s 100% back but Southampton are really improving right now and they’re looking good. If Leicester do win that game, I can’t see big returns for Vardy – this one feels like a 1 goal ceiling type game for him in my personal opinion.

Marcus Rashford looks a good bet on paper at home against Norwich, but they’ve sorted out their defensive frailties of late, and United aren’t exactly the most prolific team at home, nor are they the most prolific team in terms of breaking low block defences down. I expect to see United struggle to really open up Norwich and it’ll be tighter than it probably should be, with Rashford maybe getting something, but not too much.

This GW, I really like the look of Kevin De Bruyne.

Aston Villa are conceding a lot of chances at the moment (17 big chances in their last 5 games) and Man City look like they’re starting to get back to their best form and De Bruyne is on fire right now.

Admittedly, it did look like he was playing a little deeper in their last match against Everton but I think that was more just a one-off instruction based on the opposition and the fact the attacking young Phil Foden was playing.

Against Villa, I don’t expect him to sit as deep and we know what Kevin can do when he’s playing more aggressively in attack. Even if he does sit back, he still has the potential to get an assist or two and with him so creative, he’s always got a chance of bonus points.