fantasy premier league captain tips GW14 – plus transfer poll results

Here’s our fantasy premier league captain tips GW14 article where we look at ways of assessing the best captain pick for the gameweek. We look at the fixtures, the bookies odds, the FPL advice site polls, who the FFGeek contributors are captaining, some stats and the FFGeek choice. We also look at the results of the transfer in and out polls.

fantasy premier league captain tips GW14 – plus transfer poll results

The fixtures

The Bookies Team win odds

It’s very interesting this week

Man City v Bournemouth – £1.11 Aguero, Sterling, Silva D and Sane

Chelsea v Fulham – £1.18 Hazard and Morata

Liverpool v Everton – £1.36 Salah, Mane and Firmino

The Bookies player odds

Here’s a bookies anytime goal scoring odds up to £2.37 for £1 invested as of Thursday evening. It assumes the player starts and doesn’t count assist potential

£1.50 – Aguero

£1.61 – Hazard

£1.73 – Sterling, Morata

£1.80 – Salah

£1.85 – Kane, Sane

£2.05 – Lacazette

£2.15 – Vardy

£2.25 – Mane

 The FPL advice site Polls

Here’s the FFGeek captain poll:

You can see the full FFGeek captain poll with this link

Here’s a summary of the now 5 captain polls:

Btw, the FFGeek poll asks who will you captain as does site 2 although just gives you a few options. Site 1 asks for the best captain and site 3 and 4 are silent on the question.

The FFGeek contributors

Here’s what I’ve got so far.

Hazard* means subject to any news about fitness

Some stats

This week I’m looking at the 3 poll leaders in Aguero, Sterling and Hazard

Gametime

So all 3 players have some gametime risk.

Aguero as he played 80 minutes last weekend and 90 minutes mid week in the Champions League as Jesus was not fit and the position is unclear as to whether Jesus will be fit for GW14.  City play Watford midweek in GW15 and then GW16 away to Chelsea.  Aguero’s so far started every PL game but it certainly not out of the question that he could be rested.

With Chelsea in the Europa League Hazard hasn’t had the same midweek demands as some of the other premium players.  So free from injury there would be less risk around rotation.  However his starting place isn’t certain due to an ongoing injury issue.  He has been training though. My impression is that Sarri has been fairly cautious so for me unless we hear more an appearance from the bench is not out of the question.  Here’s some Sarri words

“He will not be able to play [in the EL], but I think he will be able to recover for the [Fulham GW14] match.”

“I am worried because he had a back injury (earlier in the season) and now ankle. So, he has lost a lot of training,” 

“It’s normal he is not at the top form of his physical condition. He has one week and a couple of matches.

“This week it is useful for him to have training. Of course he cannot play 10 matches in 30 days, so sometimes he has to rest.”

Sterlings risk is just around general rotation and the choice of midfielders that Pep has.  However injuries to Bernardo Silva and De Bruyne reduce that choice put Pep put out some words implying that the RW choice effectively is between him and Mahrez.  Both played 90 minutes midweek.

Make of the above information what you will.

Aguero stats

Here’s Agueros starts in 18/19 against non top 6 sides at home.

Returns in 6/6 games but not great minutes. Shot volumes and xG/xA are very good.  Got double figure FPL points in 2 of the 6 games.

Overall Aguero’s Points per 90 mins when on the pitch is 7.7 and he’s returned a goal or assist in 8 of his 13 starts which is 62%. He has the best minutes adjusted underlying stats of any forward and is my 2nd  ranked forward for projected points over the next 6 matches.

The Bournemouth away defence against top 6 sides

Bournemouth has only played Chelsea away from home.

Overall the Bournemouth defence is 8th in goals conceded with 18 and also 10th in xG conceded.

Away they are ranked 8th with 9 goals conceded from 6 games and ranked 8th with xG conceded.

Hazard

Here’s Hazard’s starts in 18/19 against non top 6 sides at home.

Returns and both double figure FPL points in 2 of 3 games and unsurprisingly with 3 bonus points in the 2 returning games.   The xG strips out the penalty vs Cardiff.  The xG and xA aren’t fantastic but the shot volumes and key pass volumes are reasonably good.

Hazard’s non top 6 opponents are more difficult that Sterlings and Aguero’s it’s worth noting.

Overall Hazards points per 90 mins when on the pitch is 7.7 and he’s returned a goal or assist in 8 of his 13 starts which is 62%. He has the 4th best minutes adjusted underlying stats of any midfielder and is my 3rd  ranked midfielder for projected points over the next 6 matches.

The Fulham away defence against top 6 sides

It’s impossible to say how bad these numbers are.

Overall the Fulham defence is worst defence in goals conceded with 33 against and they are 19th in xG conceded.

Away they are ranked 20th with 18 goals conceded from 7 games and ranked 20th in xG conceded.

Sterling

Here’s Sterlings starts in 18/19 against non top 6 sides at home

So returned in 4/4 games. Everything is excellent with maybe just the Newcastle game being a little disappointing in xG

Overall Sterlings points per 90 mins when on the pitch is 9.2 and he’s returned a goal or assist in 8 of his 11 starts which is 73%. He has the 3rd best minutes adjusted underlying stats of midfielders and is my 4th ranked midfielder for projected points over the next 6 matches.

The Bournemouth away defence against top 6 sides

As for Aguero above

Bournemouth has only played Chelsea away from home.

Overall the Bournemouth defence is 8th in goals conceded with 18 and also 10th in xG conceded.

Away they are ranked 8th with 9 goals conceded from 6 games and ranked 8th with xG conceded.

The 3 players lineup as a comparison

Here I’ve just taken the averages and lined them up so it’s easier to compare. I’ve then marked in green who has the best stat of the 3.

Summary

From a gametime perspective both Sterling and Aguero have the inevitable Pep rotation risk.  Hazard doesn’t have rotation risk at this stage but is coming back from an injury.  He appears fit it’s just whether Sarri is cautious and starts him from the bench.  Aguero has also on going minutes issues and is a sub magnet for Pep

The bookies odds for anytime goal scoring see Aguero as a favourite at £1.50 with Hazard at £1.61 Sterling at £1.73.  Hazard and Aguero have penalty duties.

The polls favour Aguero on around 40% with the other 2 fluctuating at around 25%

The FFGeek contributors are pretty mixed between Aguero and Hazard but remember few have Sterling.

The stats probably favour Aguero in terms of goal scoring but has a minutes issue.  Hazard has the returns but his underlying stats could be better although he has shown he can outperform them.

Sterlings overall though are impressive from all angles

Hazard has the big advantage of defence being faced though.  Fulham are a defensive disaster and things didn’t really improve first up for Ranieri v Southampton.  I’m sure he’ll try and play very defensively but how much he has been able to do so far is questionable.  Bournemouth don’t have much data to work with but are undoubtedly afar stronger prospect than Fulham

The FFGeek choice

Firstly I don’t have Sterling so my choice is between Hazard and Aguero.  If I could get out of my head the niggling doubt of Hazard being on the bench I would probably go for Hazard.  However I can’t which means I will probably go with Aguero.

If I had Sterling though I would be very tempted as his stats are impressive.  It’s just whether I would have the nerve to go up against two more highly owned picks.

At the moment the armband is on Aguero.  If I change it I’ll tweet it.

The transfer in and out polls

So Hazard being the sacrifice for Sterling and Sane looks the most dominant pattern

That’s it hope you found it useful.

See what last seasons 715 OR finisher Andrew Fergusons team plans are plus also  the 10 top FPL managers I follow and in my team in my early FFGeek team thoughts

See our fixture ease article for players with the best fixtures ad well as the bandwagons article for the most transferred in

Also the  players underlying stats for GW13

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