Fantasy Premier League (FPL) managers use a variety of different metrics to determine their captaincy choices such as class, form, fixtures, underlying statistics, ownership % and positional changes.

For those who have held onto their Triple Captain chips in anticipation of the upcoming double Gameweeks, this choice is even more critical given the range of possible outcomes.  A weekend goalscorer becoming a midweek hat-trick hero as his club fights a relegation battle can ensure the breaking of a century in style, while a captaincy differential missing one penalty kick, while giving away another to a teammate can ruin a month’s worth of planning.  These are not just dream scenarios, as those of us who have captained Christian Benteke and Steven Gerrard in previous seasons can attest.

Methodology

By looking at the attacking returns from Gameweek 21, since the last international break, we can get a sense of the players who have been consistent, explosive, underperforming, or a combination thereof. Those who have played in fewer matches are noted in the tables below with their appearances in brackets. Harry Kane and Riyad Mahrez are used in these tables as the baseline for comparison as the in-form attackers without a double Gameweek. This is so that Fantasy managers can judge triple captaincy candidates against these peak performers.

The numbers in the consistency, explosiveness and dynamite columns are how many times they have achieved good, excellent and outstanding points returns. The higher the numbers in those columns, the better the captaincy option.

The points for each category are:
Consistent 5-9 pts in a match
Explosive 10-14 pts in a match
Dynamite 15-19 pts in a match

Captaincy Strategies

Before looking at the individual players, here’s a few strategies to consider:

Something to play for – this is arguably as important as fixture difficulty on the ticker, with many a double Gameweek impacted by a surprise name whose performance was vital to his club’s battle for position in the table. European qualification and domestic relegation are clearly the main battles here, with Arsenal, the Manchester clubs, West Ham, maybe Liverpool, Newcastle, Sunderland, and maybe Crystal Palace still focused on the standings.

Perhaps a Double Gameweek 37 club will have its fortunes changed by then, however; monitoring this situation will be crucial, though most FPL managers will have already committed to the use of the chip by that time. This could be an argument for a Gameweek 34 vs a Gameweek 37 triple captaincy.

Narrowing the odds – this depends largely on where you want your floors and ceilings to be located for the triple captaincy Gameweek. Obviously the worst case scenario is an injury or red card in the first half of the first match (a 3 vs a rival’s 60+ would be an absolute sickener), but more likely the range would be two blanks for a floor of 10-12 points, and two returns for a ceiling of around 50 points.

If you want to minimize the potential damage of a captain failure, the easiest solution is to load up on the stand-out options and be satisfied with however the most popular captaincy choice performs. A failure here still could sting more than usual, basically the equivalent of not even owning a highly scoring captain in a regular Gameweek, but it seems to avoid catastrophe.

Going with a differential captain could therefore be a risk worth taking, largely for the same reason as above: if you at least own the best options, you will have mitigated the downside of not captaining them somewhat.

When to triple captain –  Another factor to consider is those managers who are using the Bench Boost when you are using the triple captaincy.  In a weekly h2h or a mini league, Gameweeks 34 and 37 present opportunities to break from the crowd but also might limit the ability to block a rival’s moves.

The players

Note: Rondon has been wrongly listed as having a DGWK in GWK 37. It is GWK 34 that he has the DGWK.

Key Point: Reports of Sergio Aguero’s demise have been greatly exaggerated.

The timing of his most recent underperformance has been accompanied by a Harry Kane onslaught, which might be tainting people’s perceptions of the Argentine a bit. While Man City do look ragged, Aguero is actually a safer bet for returns now than he was in earlier parts of the season. Be warned though as most of his good hauls have come at home, while in double Gameweek 34 he will play both games on the road.

Note: Gardner has been wrongly listed as having a DGWK in GWK 37. It is GWK 34 that he has the DGWK.

Key Point: Plenty of midfield double up options

The Arsenal midfield duo of Mesut Ozil and Alexis Sanchez seem to be the most popular picks for a double up, but as far as form is concerned, the West Ham and Liverpool mids have been much better of late. Triple captaining one of Ozil or Sanchez could be a shrewd move due to fixtures, pedigree and in Ozil’s case high ownership.

For those seeking a real differential, owning and triple captaining one of Dimitri Payet and Michail Antonio could be a good move, especially if Antonio plays in a more attacking position.

Likewise, using your triple captaincy with Liverpool by owning Roberto Firmino plus one of James Milner, Philippe Coutinho or Adam Lallana could also pay off.  Rotation fears are a concern here, though I believe Coutinho is worth the risk to triple captain due to his explosiveness. Milner is a dark horse due to penalty duties.

The Fixtures

Gameweek 34 seems to offer the best fixture pairings of the double Gamweeks so far, with Man United and Arsenal looking particularly impressive. However, the FA Cup presents an interesting rotation challenge for United, depending on the results of their replay with West Ham. If United lose and don’t play on the weekend of Gameweek 35, they would seem to edge it in terms of fixture strength, though Arsenal have a favorable set up with Sat/Thurs/Sun being their sequence of fixtures in Gameweeks 34 and 35.

For Gameweek 37, so much is up in the air as far as what positions teams will be playing for and whether Everton will have the rapturous promise of a potential triple Gameweek featuring Sunderland and Crystal Palace. However, as far as what we know now, West Ham seem to offer kind fixtures and the real potential of still playing for a Champions League spot, placing Payet and Antonio firmly on the triple captaincy radar.

Defenders

The best defences keep clean sheets 40% of the time.  Even when accounting for fixtures, captaining a defender for a double Gameweek seems a bit too risky since eight of the attackers listed earned returns in at least half of their matches in the time frame being discussed.

I don’t think it is a viable strategy, especially since attacking returns for defenders are so difficult to predict, but here are the four defenders whose attacking returns have separated them from their teammates in the backline: Hector Bellerin (4 c, 1 e), Branislav Ivanovic (2 c 2 e), Funes Mori (4 c, 1 e), Patrick van Aanholt (3 c, 1 e).

*c – consistent return, e -explosive return