We explore the best options for the Fantasy Premier League captain for Gameweek 13 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/

We are back! After 2 wonderful and much needed weeks in the Dominican Republic, I’ve returned to the beautifully cold and cloudy weather of the UK – how fun.

But it’s not all bad, because now I get to get jump start my brain by putting together our content for you lovely FPL geeks out there! And, as sad as this may sound, I’m looking forward to re-engaging my brain in the FPL world again – no shame!

Right, that’s enough of that, time to get to the good stuff, and my word it’s a juicy one to come back to this week with no clear and obvious choice.

I won’t review GW12 as I normally do as we did no content that week and I was away, so I didn’t catch everything.

Results of our poll (in progress)

Given that a greater % voted for ‘other’, with those names mentioned being mainly Richarlison, followed by Martial, I will include both in this section.

Mohamed Salah – 47% of the votes

Underlying attacking stats the last 5 Gameweeks:

39 penalty area touches

19 total goal attempts.

13 goal attempts inside the box.

3 big chances.

3 goals.

2 assists.

Sergio Agüero – 32% of the votes

Underlying attacking stats the last 5 Gameweeks:

32 penalty area touches

22 total goal attempts.

20 goal attempts inside the box.

6 big chances.

3 goals.

0 assists.

Anthony Martial – Representing a majority of the 13% of the votes

Underlying attacking stats the last 5 Gameweeks (where he’s been involved in the match):

37 penalty area touches

13 total goal attempts.

9 goal attempts inside the box.

3 big chances.

6 goals.

1 assist.

Richarlison – Representing a majority of the 13% of the votes

Underlying attacking stats the last 5 Gameweeks:

25 penalty area touches

9 total goal attempts.

7 goal attempts inside the box.

2 big chances.

3 goals.

1 assist.

Sadio Mané – 8% of the votes

22 penalty area touches

8 total goal attempts.

5 goal attempts inside the box.

2 big chances.

2 goals.

0 assists.

Differential captain options

Anthony Martial – The Martial bandwagon is picking up real pace now with his ownership at over 12% now, on the back of 6 goals and 1 assist in his last 5 games. It’s an incredible run and one that has largely coincided with United picking up some form too, the Manchester Derby result aside. On a personal note, I still have some reservations about United’s attack to sign an attacker from them, but with an out of form Palace, Southampton, and Fulham in their next 4, Martial should be able to continue his red hot form across those fixtures and provide owners a decent differential captaincy shout this week with no clear-cut option elsewhere. David Silva – I’m going for something a little different this week. Sterling was also mentioned in the comments on my tweet and it is probably the most logical choice if you’re not too keen on Agüero or don’t own, but fancy City to do well yet, I’m backing Silva. I think with KDB out again and Bernado’s knock, David is less likely to be dropped than Sterling and he’s actually registered very similar attacking stats to Sterling over the last 5 Gameweeks, with 12 goal attempts, 9 inside the box and 2 big chances, scoring 2 goals and providing 2 assists. City like playing West Ham, having scored 16 goals in their last 4 games at West Ham, so there’s a lot to like about captaining a City player this week and David Silva could be a real cheeky differential captaincy move.

The Captain Metric says…

… Sergio Agüero.

Important Note: We have twigged the metric slightly, which has been updated in our explanation of the Captain Metric (link found at the beginning of the article).

We have taken out xGI Delta. We realised that this was an extension essentially of ‘Player Form’ and so we have decided to add in something a little different in the form of ‘Home/Away Conversion’. This basically gives us the % goal conversion rate for the player depending on whether they’re playing at home, or away (a shout out to Tom from Who Got The Assist who suggested this to us).

Breakdown:

Player form – Mohamed Salah has scored more points than either Agüero or Richarlison in the last 5 Gameweeks.

– Mohamed Salah has scored more points than either Agüero or Richarlison in the last 5 Gameweeks. Team form – Agüero’s Manchester City have created the most amount of big chances (17) in the last 5 Gameweeks in comparison to Liverpool and Everton.

– Agüero’s Manchester City have created the most amount of big chances (17) in the last 5 Gameweeks in comparison to Liverpool and Everton. Fixture difficulty – Richarlison’s opponents (Cardiff) have conceded more big chances (15) than either of Salah or Agüero’s opponents.

– Richarlison’s opponents (Cardiff) have conceded more big chances (15) than either of Salah or Agüero’s opponents. Likelihood of scoring – According to the bookies, Sergio Agüero is the most likely to score.

– According to the bookies, Sergio Agüero is the most likely to score. Expected goals/assists (xGI) – Sergio Agüero has the highest expected goal involvement of the 3 candidates over the last 5 Gameweeks.

– Sergio Agüero has the highest expected goal involvement of the 3 candidates over the last 5 Gameweeks. Home/Away Goal Conversion – Richarlison has by far the best goal conversion rate for this weekend’s fixtures having scored 3 goals from his 12 attempts in his 4 appearances so far at Goodison. Salah, by stark contrast, has only scored 1 goal from 24 attempts on the road and has the lowest goal conversion rate of any outfield midfielder away from home and Agüero, has only scored 1 from 16 attempts in his 5 games away from home.

My view

It’s gotta be between Agüero and Salah. Not perfect fixtures but neither require it in order to bring the bacon home.

Salah’s definitely starting to pick up, but I must admit to not being all that impressed with Liverpool in recent weeks. They don’t seem to be fully at the races, whereas Manchester City look just as explosive and impregnable as last season.

Manchester City also LOVE playing West Ham, as we mentioned earlier – their last 5 results against them in all comps have been:

West Ham 1-4 Manchester City

Manchester City 2-1 West Ham

West Ham 0-4 Manchester City

West Ham 0-5 Manchester City

Manchester City 3-1 West Ham

Granted these were during the Moyes and Bilic eras but they haven’t exactly sured up defensively under Pellegrini either, having conceded the 4th most amount of big chances and the 6th highest amount of goals. And as we know, City have scored the most goals and created the most amount of big chances, so it’s hard to see them not scoring at least 2 here.

Having said that, Liverpool have also done extremely well versus Watford in recent times, with their last 5 results being:

Liverpool 5-0 Watford

Watford 3-3 Liverpool

Watford 0-1 Liverpool

Liverpool 6-1 Watford

Liverpool 2-0 Watford

Watford, under Gracia, on the other hand, have been very solid defensively so far, having the 6th best defence in the league and Liverpool’s away attacking form hasn’t been all that great, with 9 goals from their 6 away games.

This is the reason my personal choice and recommendation for the captaincy this week is Agüero.

And for a differential, then I would stick with the City players and go for either Sterling or David Silva, based on the fact I’m not really sure Richarlison will end up being a differential captaincy pick this week, otherwise, I’d recommend him 3rd after Agüero and Salah.

Stats obtained from fantasyfootballscout.co.uk

Odds obtained from williamhill.com