Fantasy premier league captains seemed so easy didn’t it?  Have RVP/Rooney in your team and home and away rotate either of them with Aguero/Tevez who rotate perfectly due to policing reasons.  Well for 3 out of the 6 game weeks those captains have failed to appear in the starting line up.  Rooney a popular captain choice in GW2  didn’t appear and RVP home to Wigan didn’t either.  Tevez also didn’t appear in GW5 at home to Arsenal.

So what is the answer?  Do we need alternative captain options and if thats the case should we even be investing in RVP/Rooney/Aguero/Tevez

In this article we’ll explore some of the arguments and look for alternatives in this rotation filled world

Lets start with some basic facts about our 4 leading Utd and City players

RVP

Cost –  £13.5m ownership 32%.  Ignoring game week 1 has played 90 minutes in 4/5 games

In 3 games you would have considered him as captain he has started 2 and scored 9 and 15 points.  He is ranked 9th in game week 5 shooting stats

In summary then, if he starts against “qualifying teams”  he should be successful.  Howvere,  with Rooney, Welbeck Hernandez as cover and SAF prioritising the champions league (including the Group stage) then rotation will definitely occur.  Adding to this is his historic injury record and SAFs rotation policy then RVP is a major risk for rotation. To make it even worse, SAF will often put them on the bench and then give them a late run exacerbating the problem.

Rooney

Cost – £11.7m ownership £5.4%.  Has only played 1 full game.  The same comments apply and again you have to think he’s a major rotation risk.

Tevez

Cost £9.8m ownership 46%.  Has played 2/2 games that you would have considered him as a captain choice although this is not representative due to Aguero’s injury.  In these games he scored 6 and 15 points.  In my mind Tevez will be successful if he starts against qualifying teams that he is a realistic captain option.  However as for RVP/Rooney and with Dzeko and Ballotelli at the club, home games against the easier teams are a natural choice to rotate.  Mancini as does SAF tends to put the player on the bench and give them a late run to exacerbate the problem.

In summary then as for RVP and Rooney, if he starts then he should get healthy returns.   However,  the presence of 3 other strikers at the club, the difficult champs league group (which Mancini is under pressure to get out of after last year)  then he has to be a major rotation risk

Aguero

Aguero £11.0m  ownership 6.4%.  Has only played 1 full game.  Has to be a major rotation risk.

So what are the main rotation factors?

Here are some of the factors that will influnce rotation

injury – Most of the time the managers will want 1 key player on the pitch.  An injury to the key partner will lessen the rotation risk.  A home game to Reading for example though could still be a risk even with these factors.

proximity to champion league games – Either before or after heightens the rotation risk

Proximity to other league matches  – an obvious example is around Christmas where rotation will be the managers stock in trade.  FA and  League Cups shoudn’t increase the rotation risk.

So should we sell RVP etc?

The main issue with selling RVP is that he is held by a high proportion of fantasy premier league managers and is capable of a hat trick against the lower teams within the blink of an eye.  That’s 34 points with the captains armband going against you in 1 week with 1 player held by 32% of your competitors. Much as I don’t believe defensive purchasers are a way to play fantasy premier league there has to be some common sense applied and this is one of those situations.  The factors for selling him include the immediate fixtures although these will start to improve but you should remember RVP can score no matter what the opposition.  The other is the service given to him by Utd.  How long can Utd continue with Paul Scholes the driving force in the centre of the park.  At the moment I have far more pressing issues with my team than dumping RVP and I think its too premature to sell him especially as the fixtures will start to improve soon.  The issues aren’t as pressing for everyone else.  Rooney and Aguero aren’t owned by a high percentage of fantasy premier league managers so scoring by them isn’t going to hurt you.  Citys fixtures are getting very strong so a purchase of Aguero or the holding of Tevez stand up even without the captain option.  Tevez is still a relative bargain and holds up on value and fixtures alone.

The alternative captain option

What we do need though in my mind is an alternative captain option going forward.  To do that we should pretend that Manchester Utd and Manchester City don’t exist.

So who have you got this week after a champions league mid week game? You should have Defoe, Bale or Suarez in your team as an alternative now matter how much you want Aguero to be captain at home to Sunderland.

Lets take this further for the next few games.  By the way, you’ll notice I haven’t included Chelsea in this.  The reason being is I’m a little wary of Torres as a captain source due to form and the 3 attacking midfielders of Hazard, Oscar and Mata need to find a pattern so as to look viable scoring options again.  However for anyone with confidence in Hazard he certainly could fit in to this matrix

GW8

Liverpool v Reading (Suarez) – preferred

QPR v Everton (Fellaini Jelavic) – secondary

Norwich v Arsenal (Cazorla Gervinho) – secondary

GW9

Arsenal v QPR  (Cazorla Gervinho) – preffered

Southampton v Spurs (Bale Defoe) – prefered

GW10

Spurs v Wigan (Bale Defoe) – preffered

GW11

Arsenal v Fulham (Cazorla Gervinho) – preffered

Everton v Sunderland (Fellaini Jelavic) – secondary

Summary

So the upshot is that I’m not in favour of dumping RVP – yet.  I am very wary of him as a captain choice but selling him when he has such high ownership and the ability to hurt me significantly in any week with a hat trick is a monitor rather than a sell.  Neither Aguero or Rooney have the ownership or the cost at the moment to warrant a sell and Tevez is good value so no need to panic sell just yet especially with the fixtures coming.

With City having excellent fixtures now and Utds round the corner I would certainly be having coverage of both teams.  If I could start from nothing I would go for Aguero and RVP

The main point of this article though is to plan for future alternative captain choices.  You can see from this article that you should have if possible Liverpool Arsenal Spurs and Everton coverage.  At the moment I have Spurs and Everton and will be looking to add Arsenal this week.

This does go against my philosophy of having players within teams with good fixtures but it is possible to join them both up.  Arsenal have the 5th best next fixtures Everton 2nd and Liverpool 8th.  Spurs don’t but its a case of looking forward for the alternative captain plugs required before selling.  I’m not sure I would sell Bale and Defoe for form and value reasons respectively at the moment anyway.

I hope you find this useful food for thought.  Remember I will do at captain choice article every week on the Friday or first thing Saturday morning.  At the moment 4 out of 6 choices have all returned a goal or assist.  This will cover the likelihood of players starting at Man U and Man City