Dugout Discussion – Saturday

Saturday’s events continue with a slate consisting of five afternoon kick-offs. In Fantasy terms, the stakes could hardly be higher.

Both Manchester sides are in action, ensuring plenty of interest for the next two hours.

The Etihad Stadium is undoubtedly the focus. Manchester City are lining up Burnley as their latest prey, having fired no less than 29 goals this season with 17 arriving in their previous three home matches.

Unsurprisingly, their assets head into today’s clash backed by an army of new owners, although, innevitably, Pep Guardiola has intervened.

Both Raheem Sterling (390,000) and Gabriel Jesus (283,000) were two of the top three transfer targets prior to last night’s deadline and both are benched by the City boss.

The Brazilian is the most-captained of the pair, claiming 586,000 (11.3%) armbands, while Sterling is skippered by 111,000 (2.1%) – the first time he has appeared in the top ten options this season.

They make way as Bernardo Silva and Sergio Aguero come in.

The Argentine starts having been unused from the bench in City’s last two fixtures and is in sight of the clubs all-time scoring record. Aguero needs two goals to beat the milestone today and is backed by 225,000 with the captaincy.

However, United’s Romelu Lukaku is again the most popular captain pick.

The seven-goal striker has the support of 1.5 million managers (29.1%) ahead of his visit to Huddersfield Town having blanked at Anfield last time out.

Elsewhere this afternoon, Stoke host Bournemouth at the bet365 stadium, while Crystal Palace will look to build on their victory over Chelsea when they travel to Newcastle United.

Meanwhile, Tammy Abraham will seek to build on his reputation as a cut-price forward solution when he faces Leicester City at the Liberty Stadium. The Chelsea loanee has been acquired by 293,000+ managers for Gameweek 9 – second only to Sterling.