Here’s our fantasy premier league captain planning article where we look a number of weeks ahead to see where the best captain options may fall. We also take a quick look at who those captain choices could be
fantasy premier league captain planning – A look at how this could effect our big hitter selection
In this article we pick out the fixtures that are likely to house our captain picks and see which players we could end up with as our premium attacking players. The first 3 gameweeks have a bookies odds attached to them so we have included each fixture which has odds to win at £1.53 or less. We then put a table together to summarise the position and give a view as to who those players could be.
Ideally I’d like to have the captain favourite as determined by the polls and the bookies every week but that gets harder each season as the player choice gets wider. You then end up in a choice of not having the favourite, taking hits or just swapping premium players each week without improving your overall team.
Therefore I like to plan ahead so at least I’ve got a good captain alternative without just transferring in and out premium players each week
The fixtures
Here’s the fixtures that I think will produce the best chance of a captain pick from the first 10 gameweeks. Bookies odds are available for the first 3 gameweeks so I thought I’d include them
GW1
Arsenal v Leicester
1.36 7.50
Chelsea v Burnley
1.18 13.00
Brighton v Man City
7.00 1.36
Man Utd v West Ham
1.30 9.00
Watford v Liverpool
£1.53
GW2
Swansea v Man Utd
7.00 1.44
Liverpool v Crystal Palace
1.30 9.00
Man City v Everton
1.36 7.50
GW3
Bournemouth v Man City
7.50 1.44
Chelsea v Everton
1.44 6.50
Tottenham v Burnley
1.25 9.00
Man Utd v Leicester
1.36 7.50
GW4
Arsenal v Bournemouth
GW5
Liverpool v Burnley
Watford v Man City
Spurs v Swansea
GW6
Man City v Palace
Arsenal v WBA
GW7
Huddersfield v Spurs
Man Utd v Palace
Arsenal v Brighton
GW8
Man City v Stoke
Spurs v Bournemouth
Watford v Arsenal
GW9
Chelsea v Watford
Huddersfield v Man Utd
Man City v Burnley
GW10
Arsenal v Swansea
Bournemouth v Chelsea
Liverpool v Huddersfield
Summary table
Thoughts on fixtures
In terms of pure numbers of good fixtures if you’re looking at the first 6 gameweeks you’d be looking at Man City, Arsenal, Man Utd and Liverpool.
However GW4 has difficult fixtures for everyone except Arsenal. That also covers you for GW6 where there is only 1 alternative.
If you are thinking of wildcarding after GW3 for the international break you may think you can get away without Harry Kane as there are a number of other good fixtures there. You maybe worried about his previous slow starts and the Wembley affect for Spurs
So from this you would take Man City, Arsenal, Man Utd and Spurs if you’re wedded to Harry Kane. Liverpool have a multitude of player options so you may think that this resulting points spread would dilute any need for a captain option. 4 options maybe too much of a money committment though.
Player options
Ideally you would want your captain to be a consistent yet explosive scorer with great underlying stats to show it’s real. This only includes last seasons players and not anyone new such as Lacazette. It also ignores players with significant gametime risk.
Here’s a table which resulted from me picking the top 10 players from the entire FPL playing set in each category of the most consistent, most explosive and those with best shots on target stats in FPL last season
“Consistent” means the percentage of games where they produced a goal or assist
“Explosive” means the % of games that they got over 10+ FPL points
“Shots on target” is per 90 minutes played and provided by whoscored.com
This and more stats are available on 150+ players in our Ebook “preparing for FPL 2017/18”
So what does this mean?
So looking at all the factors ie the pattern of the fixtures, the amount of potential captain fixtures plus the players best suited to captaincy then the best 3 to have would be Sanchez, Jesus/Aguero and Kane.
Unfortunately apart from Jesus you’ve probably got the 3 most expensive players in the game which isn’t helpful.
To further back this up in my article “searching for Mr Consistency” Kane, Sanchez and Aguero were shown to have the most consistent returns over the last 3 seasons. Also they very rarely go more than a few games without returning.
All 4 also have issues to contend with. Sanchez will have a shortened pre-season due to playing in the confederation cup final. Kane will have the Wembley effect to deal with for Spurs home games, Aguero gametime and position due to Peps love of Jesus. Lastly, both Jesus and Aguero because who knows what Pep will do at anytime with positional and gametime factors for both of them. Jesus also has still only played half a season in the premier league.
At the moment I’m undecided but Kane, Sanchez and Jesus are in my thoughts definitely.
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