Is Aguero Really Essential?

After reluctantly playing an early wildcard after Gameweek 3, I was led into that parallel Fantasy universe where you get to put a team together that doesn’t contain Sergio Aguero, who is in the midst of a three game suspension.

Being able to load up on premiums in nearly every position felt like a naughty indulgence in contrast to the restrictiveness of trying to accommodate a full £13m  worth of Argentine goal-machine.

Suddenly, a glorious midfield quartet of Eden Hazard, Dimitri Payet, Roberto Firmino and Raheem Sterling opened up to me and the days of comparing the stats of almost-certain trolls like Jason Puncheon and Gaston Ramirez were over. For two weeks at least. Then the pain is set to start again, trying to convince myself that a double 4.1m Swansea defence might work as I look to get Aguero back in when his suspension ends in Gameweek 6.

So then I started thinking about the impossible. Going without him when he returns.

The groupthink about how ‘essential’ Aguero is to our Fantasy teams is so strong that I’m not sure I had ever considered it as an option before. But the more I mulled the idea over, the more I liked it and the more attached to my balanced Premium-laden team I became.

The Arguments For Going Aguero-less

Hazard and Ibrahimovic

I believe Eden Hazard is the most important player to own this year. I also feel like Zlatan Ibrahimovic  is a must-have and will be the most consistent points-scorer of 2016/17. To fit in Aguero alongside these two monsters and maintain a reasonable level of balance throughout the rest of your team means you would almost certainly have to include a very cheap starting mid such as Capoue, Fer or, at a stretch, Snodgrass.

This combo would set you back roughly 18.5m. If Aguero were to stay fit for the whole year (highly unlikely based on previous seasons) then from Gameweek 6 onwards we could maybe expect him to accumulate around 200 points on top of the 24 he already has. For a Snodgrass type player we could at best expect maybe 120 points in this same 33-week period. So overall, we could expect maybe 320 points from these two players and that’s being optimistic. Some might think that is a low estimate for Aguero but even if he were to avoid injuries he would surely be rested and subbed on and off at various times by Guardiola. The fact that they a seemingly endless array of goalscoring midfielders makes me think Aguero will be rested much more frequently than we have seen before, especially if City go deep in the Champions League.

By contrast, for the same money we are able to put together various mouth-watering mid/fwd combinations such as Lukaku and Payet/Ozil, Benteke and De Bruyne, Bony and Sanchez, Firmino and Vardy, Cazorla and Kane or Sturridge and Eriksen/Alli.

I think it would be very reasonable to expect a combined 320 points from any of these combinations for the rest of the season. But in reality you wouldn’t stick with two of these guys for the whole year. You could trade them in and out depending on form, fixtures and impending price rises. With good planning and a bit of luck you should be able to easily squeeze more than 320 points out of these two positions, and gradually build team value at the same time. The Aguero/5.5m combo however is incredibly inflexible with the current lack of good options in the 5-5.5m category. If a new Mahrez emerges then great but there is no sign of it so far and those who think Capoue can repeat the Algerian’s feats of last year are almost certainly going to be disappointed.

Aguero’s Injuries

The other thing not accounted for here is the almost inevitable injuries that Aguero will pick up throughout the year. We are already seeing how stressful it is trying to get him out and then back into your side, with people currently wildcarding en masse and taking hits left, right and centre to deal with his suspension (which, by the way, masks the fact that he hurt himself yet again). And this is when we know exactly how long he is out for. Imagine the carnage when he gets that vague ‘two, possibly three weeks’ injury? While he may well be the most dangerous and potent player in the game, he is also a good candidate for being the most frustrating.

Captaincy

The major drawback and worry to not owning Aguero is the captaincy. He is the poll-leader the majority of the time when fit and not having him for certain fixtures would be rather terrifying. However, I also have to question if having the armband on Aguero is as important as everyone makes out. Looking back through his history, he appears to be a fairly streaky player with a surprising amount of dry spells.

Ibrahimovic on the other hand seems to be a much more consistent goalscorer with fewer blanks and more assists on average than the Argentine.

As a rather crude example, let’s say Aguero blanks four games in a row and then scores five in one game – he would be looking at a total of 33 points for those five games. Now let’s say Zlatan scores one goal in five consecutive games, the same total as Aguero over that spell. He would likely get around 40 points (assuming an average of two Fantasy Premier League bonus points per game) over that five due to more bonus being available.

This is kind of what Eden Hazard has done for the last few years, a steady drip of one-goal games with absolute maximum bonus points. And for a guy who can score 3+ goals in any fixture, it is kind of hard to predict when and where Aguero’s mammoth scores will come so I would argue that in order to ensure getting the best out of him as a captain choice you would need to put the armband on him every week so you don’t miss the big haul that makes it all worth it. Alternatively, you could stick with Zlatan as a safe captain option for most weeks and jump on Hazard, Sanchez, Kane and other premiums for plum fixtures. Overall I’m pretty confident that Aguero’s captain hauls can be matched or bettered over the course of the season with some good judgement and a bit of luck.

Conclusion

So unless Hazard or Ibrahimovic get an injury I think I will be stepping into unchartered waters and experimenting with an Aguero free team for the rest of the year. As a City fan it makes me anxious (I think I will have to lump some cash on him to score anytime to make sure I can still enjoy his goals going in) but the FPL player in me is happy to set sail from The People’s Republic of Aguero and join the vagrants and misfits on Romelu Lukaku Island.