What The Fixtures and Form Say – Double Gameweek 27 Captaincy

This article aims to help Fantasy Premier League (FPL) Managers in their choice for the best captaincy option for the forthcoming Gameweek by combining form and fixtures.

Additionally, I have also included a ‘clean sheet potential’ table to help assess the Gameweek’s best defensive assets.

Before I take a look at Gameweek 27’s best captaincy targets, let’s have a quick recap on how I use form and fixtures to come to achieve this.

REFINING THE ODDS

For this method, I am going to take the top six most popular captaincy options and rank them 1-6 ranking according to the difficulty of the fixture, which is worked out using goals conceded, big chances conceded and shots in the box (Sib) conceded from the last four games.

I then apply the same ranking to form, looking at total points per game, goals and assists over the last four games. The form table will include Home and Away PPG but these sections will only come into play in terms of the results when the total PPG of 2 players are the same. The Home and Away PPG will now take into account the last 4 Home or Away fixtures that player has featured in.

The article includes the ‘clean sheet potential’ table, which is worked out with the form and fixtures elements from the captaincy section and then combined with clean sheet odds to give a total ranking based on clean sheet potential. This section will include the top five teams.

What is Success?

What defines a successful captaincy pick according to this method? The ultimate success will be whether the top pick highlighted by the method is the top scorer of the six options from the FFS Captain poll. A monthly average will also be worked out to find the cumulative points to see if this method or the FFS Captain polls are proving to be more successful.

On a weekly basis, success will be defined as:

• Explosive = 10+ points
• Success = 7-9 points
• Average = 4-6 points
• Fail = no attacking returns

Gameweek 26’s top pick Romelu Lukaku produced an “average” return of 6 points; he finished joint second in terms of overall points for the top 6 in the captaincy poll behind Harry Kane. The clean sheet table highlighted 2 out of 5 potential clean sheets with Hull, West Brom and Chelsea conceding just the once.

What happens when there is a double gameweek?

This article will work on the assumption that in any given DGW, FPL managers will want to captain a player with two fixtures. With that in mind, the focus of this particular article will be towards Manchester City’s assets….

Form

The form table very much suggests that Raheem Sterling is the Manchester player to captain, he has the highest PPG of 6.75 with 1 goals and 4 assists in the last 4 weeks. It’s worth pointing out that he has the highest Home and Away PPG of any of the main City assets which suggest a level of consistency has developed into his game. The Englishman has consistently been the forward-most player on the pitch when looking at his heat map.

Interestingly, Sergio Aguero finishes bottom of the current form table, he has 0 goals and 1 assists in the last four Gameweeks and sits bottom of the away PPG table. But it has to be mentioned that he has looked very sharp in recent cup games. Every article I’ve read about the matches against Monaco, in the Champions League, and Huddersfield, in the FA Cup, have all said the same thing – he looks fresh and is ready to go. So do keep this in mind when looking at his league form.

Fixtures

The Burning Question – Do Manchester City’s two opponents warrant the deployment of the triple captain chip? Let’s take a look at the fixtures

Manchester City plays Sunderland (A) and then Stoke (H) –

Sunderland A)

Sunderland sit at the very top of both the goal attempts conceded and the goal attempts in the box conceded column out of all teams in the league from the last 4 game weeks. The Tyneside club have had conceded 10 big chances against them in the same time frame, placing them second only to Bournemouth on this particular list.

Stoke (H)

Stoke’s defensive resolve in the last four Gameweeks is markedly better when compared to Sunderland’s. However their most recent away game to Tottenham resulted in a 4-0 first half drubbing so the stats may be a little misleading. However, they have only conceded four big chances, with only four others team below them in this particular column. Their goal attempts and goal attempts in the box conceded are not good viewing for Potters fans where they finish J-5^th and J-8^th respectively.

Conclusion

The stats certainly suggest that the Sunderland game will be the most fruitful for City players whilst the threat of potential rotation will always be lurking for the Stoke game midweek. With such a busy schedule coming up, is it worth the risk to burn your triple captaincy chip now? I personally think now is the time to use it.

Clean Sheet Potential Table