The Captaincy Decision

Gameweek 33 presents a serious captaincy conundrum for Fantasy managers, with Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, Mohamed Salah and Harry Kane all involved in a rare three-way tussle for the armband.

With double gameweeks on the horizon, and Triple Captain chips at the ready, the captaincy is particularly important over the final stretch of a season. The question is, how should you choose your captain?

For most of us, the deciding factors are a player’s form, fixture, and likely game-time. Form can be simply measured by looking at recent attacking returns, or by focusing on key underlying statistics, such as Expected Goals (xG).

The strength of a fixture is determined by whether a player is at home or away, the defensive weaknesses of the opposition, and any other relevant circumstances for that particular gameweek. For example, a defence that has been decimated by injuries and suspensions will have fantasy managers rubbing their hands with glee.

The risk of rotation, which some expect from Liverpool at the weekend, can also affect a player’s prospects, for fear of a cameo off the bench.

All of these factors are weighed up, together with any gut-feelings, and we decide on our captains. However, I’m interested in just how effective our decision-making processes are, and how they compare to the alternatives.

The FFScout Poll – The FFS Captain Poll is voted on by fantasy managers themselves, and gives an insight into the most popular captaincy choice of the gameweek. As a result, the factors which we apply when choosing our individual captains, such as form and fixture, are all taken into account by the poll.

Rate My Team – Members also have the option of using the Rate My Team (RMT) tool, which gives weekly projections for every player’s expected points total, based on their fixture, odds of starting, and previous fantasy performance.

Captain Sensible – Usually published the day before a gameweek starts, this article gives the results of the Captain Poll, and also includes the top RMT projections for the gameweek. By looking at the numbers from these articles over the season so far, as well as the 2016-17 and 2015-16 seasons, I’ve built a picture of how these metrics compare to fantasy managers by Gameweek, using data from FPL Discovery.

Average Captaincy Scores

Average Score (2017/18)

Overall Captaincy: 5.8 Points
Top 10k Captaincy: 7.0 Points
#1 Captain Poll: 7.8 Points
#1 Rate My Team: 7.1 Points

Average Score (2016/17)

Overall Captaincy: 5.4 Points
Top 10k Captaincy: 7.0 Points
#1 Captain Poll: 7.5 Points
#1 Rate My Team: 7.9 Points

Average Score (2015/16)

Overall Captaincy: 4.8 Points
Top 10k Captaincy: 5.7 Points
#1 Captain Poll: 6.2 Points
#1 Rate My Team: 6.2 Points

Average Score (Last Three Seasons)

Overall Captaincy: 5.3 Points
Top 10k Captaincy: 6.6 Points
#1 Captain Poll: 7.1 Points
#1 Rate My Team: 7.1 Points

Captain Poll and Rate My Team

The leaders in both the Captain Poll and the Rate My Team tool have beaten the average weekly captaincy score in the Top 10k in each of the last three seasons.

The two have been remarkably evenly matched, although the Poll has the upper hand so far this season. In the 108 gameweeks studied, they have identified a different player as the top prospect for the gameweek 40% of the time, and yet they are separated by just five points in that period, with RMT currently holding onto a narrow lead.

Given that the 2015-16 season was something of an anomaly in Fantasy terms, with Leicester City winning the Premier League, a good benchmark for a successful captain looks like seven Points or more.

As well as looking at the top players for each gameweek from the Captain Poll and RMT, I also looked at the second and third placed players, to see how they compared:

Captain Poll #: Average Score (Last Three Seasons)

1: 7.1 Points
2: 6.7 Points
3: 5.7 Points

Rate My Team #: Average Score (Last Three Seasons)

1: 7.1 Points
2: 5.9 Points
3: 6.3 Points

Using this data of the top three players per Gameweek for both the Poll and RMT, I also looked at how the values within the tools related to average scores:

Captain Poll %: Average Score (Last Three Seasons)

0-9: 5.3 Points
10-19: 5.6 Points
20-29: 6.8 Points
30-39: 7.6 Points
40+: 8.0 Points

RMT Projection: Average Score (Last Three Seasons)

0.00-5.49: 5.8 Points
5.50-5.99: 5.9 Points
6.00-6.49: 6.0 Points
6.50-6.99: 5.7 Points
7.00-7.99: 7.5 Points
8.00+: 11.0 Points

Conclusion

I’m definitely not saying that these tools should be considered as the beginning and end of the captaincy discussion. FPL will be won by a manager who does not give the armband to the poll leader every week, and they will have a significantly higher average captain score than most top 10k managers.

However, over the long-term, it’s difficult to argue with their effectiveness. In particular, if a player has over 30% of the vote in the Captain Poll, and is projected to score over seven points by RMT, it’s usually best to pay attention.