fantasy premier league captain tips GW18 – plus transfer poll results

Here’s our fantasy premier league captain tips GW18 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 GW18 – plus transfer poll results

The fixtures

The Bookies Team win odds

Man City v Palace – £1.12 Sterling and Sane

Arsenal v Burnley – £1.22 Aubameyang

Chelsea v Leicester – £1.30 Hazard

Wolves v Liverpool £1.53 – Salah, Mane Firmino

Cardiff v Man Utd – £1.55 Martial

The Bookies player odds

Here’s a bookies anytime goal scoring odds up to £2.30 for £1 invested as of Friday morning. It assumes the player starts and doesn’t count assist potential

£1.53 – Aguero

£1.60 – Jesus

£1.67 – Lacazette, Aubameyang

£1.80 – Sterling

£1.91 – Salah, Hazard

£1.95 – Kane, Sane, Mahrez

£2.20 – Mkhitaryan

£2.25 – Ings, Martial

£2.30 – Wilson

The FPL advice site Polls

Here’s the FFGeek captain poll. Thanks very much for taking the time to vote:

You can see the full FFGeek captain and transfer polls with this link

A complete lack of captain polls around at the moment so only the Geek poll and site 1

Btw, the FFGeek poll asks who will you captain   Site 1 asks for the best captain and was put out before the EFL cup matches.

The FFGeek contributors

Here’s the schedule so far

Some stats

This week I’m looking at Sterling, Sane and Aubameyang

Gametime

Sane appears to be the safest gametime choice as he was left out of the squad in the midweek cup game.  However his importance on the left flank seems to have made him vulnerable to an early substitution to avoid over working him with a 52 and 65 minute subbings off in the last 2 rounds.

Sterling played the last half an hour in the midweek cup game but given he didn’t start and Mahrez played the full 90 you’ve got to think he will start v Palace

Aubameyang surprisingly played the full 90 in the cup game midweek with his potential competitor for the CF spot Lacazette coming on for just over half an hour.  What that means is anybodies guess but it creates uncertainty that if Aubameyang was rested there wouldn’t have been.  It’s not just that though. He could start as a CF or an AML depending on what Emery does.  Emery has been very unpredictable when they’ve been winning.  Who knows what could happen now they’ve lost 2 in a row.

Sterlings stats

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

You couldn’t write better stats apart from maybe the Newcastle game.

Returns in 5/5 games, 3 double figure scores and backed up by fantastic underlying stats.

Overall Sterlings points per 90 mins when on the pitch is 8.9 and he’s returned a goal or assist in 9 of his 13 starts which is 69%.

The Palace away defence against top 6 sides

So not too bad underlying stats at all.

Overall the Palace defence is 9th equal in goals conceded with 23 and also 9th in xG conceded.

Away they are ranked 13th equal with 15 goals conceded from 9 games and ranked 9th with xG conceded.

Injury wise GK Hennessey is a doubt but on balance expected to play.  It’s worth mentioning that Sterling will be up against Van Aanholt who isn’t the most defensive minded FB. It may not be too relevant though as I expect Man City to have them pinned back.  Transition could be interesting if Van Aanholt looks to immediately vacate the FB position to get forward.

Sane

Here’s his starts against non top 6 sides at home:

So returns in 6/6 games.  2 double figure scores and good underlying stats in each game although it was generally either for goals or assists and not really both at the same time.

Overall Sane’s points per 90 mins when on the pitch is 9.3 and he’s returned a goal or assist in 9 of his 10 starts which is 90%.

The Palace away defence against top 6 sides

So not too bad underlying stats at all.

Overall the Palace defence is 9th equal in goals conceded with 23 and also 9th in xG conceded.

Away they are ranked 13th equal with 15 goals conceded from 9 games and ranked 9th with xG conceded.

Injury wise GK Hennessey is a doubt but on balance expected to play.  Sane will be up against Wan Bissaka who’s very quick and has very good tackle stats.  Compared to Van Aanholt he’s also very defensive minded.  To be fair even Alonso looks defensive minded compared to Van Aanholt!  Again though this maybe neutralised to some extent by Palace being pinned back.

Aubameyang

I’m not going split the stats between Aubamenyang the AML and Aubameyang the CF as who knows which one will, hopefully, start.

Here’s Aubameyangs starts (plus 1 sub) in 18/19 against non top 6 sides at home.

Returns in 3 of 5 games. Only 1 double figure haul  though which was ironically when he was a sub. Underlying stats aren’t too bad

Overall Aubameyangs points per 90 mins when on the pitch is 6.9 and he’s returned a goal or assist in 7 of his 15 starts which is 47%.

The difference in his overall stats as CF and AML are stark. The CF stats are very good.

CF: xG90 0.63 xA90 0.20 Sh90 3.2 KP 1.7

AML: xG90 0.32 xA90 0.15 Sh90 1.79 KP 0.49

The Burnley away defence against top 6 sides.

Overall the Burnley defence is 19th in goals conceded with 33 and also 20th in xG conceded.

Away they are ranked 16th equal with 18 goals conceded from 9 games and ranked 19th in xG conceded.

The Spurs game was a definite improvement though.

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

So gametime wise Sane looks certain to start having being rested midweek.  Sterling looks likely to start having only played as an half hour sub and Mahrez played the full 90 minutes.  Aubameyang played the full 90 minutes with Lacazette just playing half an hour so anything could happen there in terms of start and position.

Aubameyang is the only one with penalty duties of the 3.

The bookies odds for anytime goal scoring see Aubameyang as the favourite of the 3 at £1.67.  Sterling at £1.80 and Sane at £1.95 ATGS.

The polls favour Sterling by a 5% margin over Sane with Aubameyang slightly behind that.

The FFGeek contributors picks are very mixed and you should see them rather than me try and summarise them.

The stats as far as the attacking players paint a fairly conclusive picture in favour of Sterling.  However Aubameyangs stats are very related to whether he plays CF or AML but on the basis that his midweek 90 minutes clouds where and when he could play it’s hard to adjust for either.

Of the 2 defences you would say that Palace is definitely the better of the 2 and one of the better of the bottom half PL teams.  Burnley have been a total disaster but their performance against Spurs was an improved xG and shots against stats plus they only lost to an injury time goal.  How much you think that is indicative of an upturn in defensive solidity will form your view on them as an opponent.

The FFGeek choice

The Sterling stats and the fact that he narrowly leads in the polls are enough for me to pick him.

The transfer in and out polls

So looks like I didn’t get the options right this week.  I imagine Sterling was part of the transfers in which I inexplicably didn’t include.  Looks like Digne could be a favourite for Alexander Arnold replacements.

That’s it hope you found it useful.

See also our fixture ease article as well as who the 10 top managers I follow have in their team.  See also last season 715 OR finisher Andrew Ferguson’s team

Also see who the popular defenders are for transfers in with our bandwagons and sinking shipsarticle

Follow FFGeek on twitter and facebook and instagram for article updates and news

Geek League links and details

fantasy premier league 

Sky Sports fantasy football

Enter PIN: 8367679

Sun Dream Team

League PIN is SGDKX9Y3