We explore the best options for the Fantasy Premier League captain for Gameweek 4 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/

Saturday felt like a bit of a blood bath, but despite Agüero’s blank, Mendy not actually getting attacking returns for once and Richarlison’s silly red card, the average actually ended up a healthy 50pts.

In terms of the captaincy, it was a tough one for owners of the main captaincy candidates, as Agüero, Aubameyang, Mané and Lukaku all blanked, whilst Firmino could only provide the 5pts in what looked a plum home fixture for Liverpool.

Those who backed Harry Kane reaped the best rewards, as he and Lucas destroyed Manchester United at Old Trafford in a 3-0 win, well and truly putting to bed his August woes.

The majority backed Salah and were rewarded, as the ever reliable Egyptian King beautifully slotted a low curling effort beyond the helpless Matt Ryan, but once again, the pacey forward failed to provide his owners with any bonus points despite scoring the winner.

Last week seemed quite difficult again between Agüero and Salah, but I’d imagine this week, the decision might be a little easier, as Agüero gets ready to face a team he really relishes playing.

Results of our poll

Sergio Agüero – 79% of the votes

Underlying attacking stats first 3 Gameweeks:

27 penalty area touches

16 total goal attempts.

10 goal attempts inside the box.

3 big chances.

3 goals.

1 assist.

Mohamed Salah – 13% of the votes

Underlying attacking stats first 3 Gameweeks:

31 penalty area touches

16 total goal attempts.

11 goal attempts inside the box.

4 big chances.

2 goals.

2 assists.

Harry Kane – 5% of the votes

Underlying attacking stats first 3 Gameweeks:

19 penalty area touches

8 total goal attempts.

8 goal attempts inside the box.

3 big chances.

2 goals.

1 assist.

Differential captain options

Eden Hazard – Eden Hazard is one of those assets you need to catch just before he hits a hot streak, because if you’re too late, he will invariably frustrate you. This is what history has told us at least – perhaps it might be different under Sarri, but one things for sure, he looked red hot against Newcastle. 9 penalty are touches, 5 goal attempts and 1 chance created – he was very involved and now faces a team he’s scored 5 goals and provided 2 assists against, in the form of Bournemouth. At 14.2% ownership and with most likely to go with Agüero, his captaincy % will be small and if Agüero and City aren’t on it, then a Hazard captaincy haul could see you fly up the ranks. Lucas Moura – Someone I had identified in pre-season as a player with bags of potential in the short-term, which last night, was realised. Playing in the ‘Son role’ in his absence through participation in the Asian games, Lucas has absolutely thrived playing right up there with Kane. Heat maps display Lucas as the furthest Spurs player forward in the last 2 games and with 3 goals to his name and confidence flowing, it wouldn’t surprise me to see him haul again against a Watford side that Spurs have put to the sword a few times in recent years.

The Captain Metric says…

… Sergio Agüero.

UPDATE: I’m always thinking of ways to improve this metric and one thing I wanted to improve upon, was to avoid too many draws and having to use a kicker to decide the winner. So I have added ‘metric score’ calculated by a simple points system which is displayed above, to help provide greater clarity.

So based on our new update, Agüero is this weeks metric choice.

The previous way of deriving the winner wouldn’t have taken into account that Salah actually comes out last for 4 of the 6 relevant statistics, whereas Agüero only comes out last for 1.

Salah is the least likely to score of the 3, has the toughest fixture (along with Kane), his team have created the least amount of big chances (along with Man City) and whilst he is over performing, he is doing so at a level that is lower than the other 2.

What these xGI and xGI delta values are showing us, is that Salah is king for getting himself into the best positions to assist and getting the big chances to score, but isn’t currently as clinical as Agüero or Kane are when they get the same opportunities, but they aren’t getting as many chances to score or assist as Salah is.

My view

Even if you take out the fact that this is a world-class striker, that he plays up front for one of the best teams in the world right now, that he’s in great form currently and is playing at home in a favourable fixture, I’d probably still captain Sergio Agüero over the other two simply because of his outrageous record against the Magpies.

There’s certain teams players love to play against, and for Agüero, this is the one. For those who don’t know, Agüero has banged in 10 goals in the last 5 appearances against them.

Rafa can get his team well-organised, as we saw against Chelsea last GW and Liverpool last year, but Pep’s City are a different animal and he’s said himself they have been working on new ways to break, teams that come to park the bus, down.

If they can get that goal in the first half, as we say, then it could easily be another landslide at the Etihad as it was when Huddersfield attempted to sit deep.

I think Salah is a good option in any game, but Leicester have started the season well and it will be a tough game for Klopp’s reds – I still expect Salah to return, I just believe Agüero has a much higher ceiling this week.

For those looking to differentiate with their captain, then I fancy Eden Hazard this week. As I’ve highlighted, he’s another player who seems to thrive playing against certain teams, and one of those is Bournemouth.

Stats obtained from fantasyfootballscout.co.uk

Odds obtained from williamhill.com