Finding the right Fantasy Premier League captain is crucial to success but can be one of the most difficult challenges to tackle. For some an explosive captain with stellar scores that come few and far between is the preferred option, while for others consistent scorers are best for the armband.
A year on from my first look at consistency and explosiveness among captaincy choices I’ve decided to crunch the numbers again to see who are the best candidates for the armband this season.
Just to recap, here are the points thresholds for each category of captaincy success.
Consistent 5-9 pts
Explosive 10-14 pts
Dynamite 15-19 pts
Legendary 20-24 pts
OMG AGUERO!!! 25+ pts
I have also added another column to show whether they have returned Home or Away, with comments on any peculiar tendencies within a player’s performance set. The players listed at each position are those who have produced returns for at least five Gameweeks or who have reached double figures in points on at least three occasions. It is worth pointing out that no player has reached the screaming heights of the top “OMG Aguero!!!” category just yet.
Forwards
Diego Costa – he has been remarkably consistent so far this season, with an unsurpassed nine returns out of eleven performances. However, the explosiveness is not quite there, with only a pair of 12 point hauls in the explosive category
Romelu Lukaku and Sergio Aguero – both have been more explosive than the Chelsea striker, but have each returned in only about 55-60% of their matches.
The decision among these players is a classic consistency vs explosiveness choice. Interestingly for our captaincy decisions, these big three have by and large delivered their biggest hauls in Away matches so far – this is somewhat counterintuitive for those who are primarily playing the fixtures, but even if it is a small sample size, this trend is worth monitoring.
Also of note are Islam Slimani, who has returned in three Home starts out of six total matches, and Harry Kane, who has not registered an explosion yet but has brought returns in four of six.
MIDFIELDERS
The strong performances from so many big name midfielders are once again on display here; of the four stars of the FPL midfield template, Eden Hazard, Phillipe Coutinho, and Alexis Sanchez have hit double figures four times so far, more than any of the forwards, including a Dynamite performance from each of them. In addition, Roberto Firmino has produced two such spectacular hauls among his six weeks of returns. One area to monitor: of Eden Hazard’s six returns so far, five have been in Home matches.
Elsewhere, noteworthy midfielders include Theo Walcott, who has matched the superstars with six returns so far but has not been as Explosive and Sadio Mane, whose five Gameweeks of returns so far seem fairly Home-based. Staying with Liverpool, James Milner’s returns have been not so boring this season, with as many Explosive returns as the premium pick Kevin De Bruyne and more than Mesut Ozil.
Finally, Nacer Chadli is one to watch for the manager who likes an unconventional pick: he has three double digit hauls from seven matches so far, the highest ratio of explosiveness in the game. The yin to Chadli’s yang is the robotic Nemanja Matic: if you want to captain a player to make sure you get a little bit of a return and don’t risk a blank when you pick him, the Chelsea rehabilitation project actually is your man: of his six returns, five have been at home, a model of Consistency so far.
DEFENDERS
Not much excitement here, but one item is perhaps more telling about the forwards than summative about the defenders: Laurent Koscielny and Jose Holebas have each returned a Dynamite performance so far, the classic defender’s 15 pointer — a line of 6/4/3/2 as the only goal scorer on the road for a team keeping a clean sheet. As interesting as those numbers is the fact that forwards as a whole only have a total of two Dynamite hauls.
A defender to watch for those seeking consistency is Marcus Alonso: five returns from six matches, including all five of his starts.
BIG PICTURE: RISK VS. REWARD
One of the striking pieces here for me is that Diego Costa is this year’s Jamie Vardy, offering a strikingly similar level of Consistency as the spearhead of a team with no European concerns as they take the league by storm. However, for those who want to eschew steady returns and gamble, perhaps a midfielder is the way to go.
Unfortunately, there is no Riyad Mahrez so far this year, and not because of price. At this point last season, Mahrez had amassed six double-digit returns already – this year only Hazard, Coutinho and Sanchez have four. Those managers who avoided price bias and gave the in-form Leicester player the armband last season were rewarded continually throughout the first half of that campaign. This year, the closest to a Mahrez so far would have been any manager clairvoyant enough to have an Etienne Capoue/Joe Allen hybrid in their squad. Capoue’s descent has matched Allen’s rise almost week for week, with three double digit hauls the reward for his sorties into the box Gameweeks 1-5 while the hirsute Stoke revelation delivered three in Gameweeks 6-10. The two of them combined for 91 points if those two stretches were combined, though the captaincy would have been a risk too far for most FPL managers.
Next week, as a follow up, I hope to use the Captain’s Poll, RMT, Fixtures, and Form to determine how predictable these players’ most impactful scores might have been.
