Captain Sensible – Salah the favourite for Gameweek 24

Mohamed Salah (£13.6m) looks to be the main captain candidate considered for Gameweek 24.

However, we wouldn’t be doing our jobs properly if we didn’t assess any potential alternatives to the Egyptian for the upcoming midweek Fantasy Premier League action.

In this latest Captain Sensible article, we’ll be analysing each player in the debate, as well as the prospects of their club and their opposition…

Captain Poll

Not surprisingly, Salah leads the captain poll for a second week running ahead of Leicester’s trip to Anfield. The 45% support for the Egyptian comes from two places, the key one being his form, with six double-figure hauls in his last eight matches. The fact that the Foxes’ out-of-sorts defence shipped four goals at Wolves in Gameweek 23 is also likely to be a huge contributing factor.

Salah’s lead is not quite as large as it was for the last round of FPL action, as Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang (£11.3m) sits in second place with a 20% share. The Arsenal man does present a compelling alternative to the Liverpool man as Cardiff come to the Emirates Stadium with the second-worst record on the road in the Premier League. In three away matches against top-six opposition this season, the Bluebirds have zero points with an aggregate score of 9-2. They look the perfect opponents for Aubameyang to continue his excellent home form, with goal involvements in four of his last five league matches at the Emirates.

Our voters may have cottoned onto the fact that Burnley are slowly making improvements, and are starting to represent tougher opposition than they did earlier in the campaign. Manchester United pair Paul Pogba (£8.7m) and Marcus Rashford (£7.7m) sit third and fourth in the poll but with just 7% and 5% shares respectively, despite their blistering recent form. The two players have scored 108 FPL points between them since Ole Gunnar Solskjaer took over at Old Trafford.

At 3% backing in fifth place, Alexandre Lacazette (£9.3m) looks like he’s being considered by some as an alternative to Aubameyang with Cardiff coming to north London.

Despite a little uncertainty over his likeliness of starts, Sergio Aguero (£11.3m) is the most popular Manchester City player in the Gameweek 24 captain poll, with 2.5% of the votes ahead of a trip to Newcastle. That may be because of his excellent scoring record against the Magpies, finding the net nine times in his last five Premier League matches against them.

The Argentinian forward sits ahead of Leroy Sané (£9.7m) and Raheem Sterling (£11.3m) who are on 2.12% and 1.37% respectively. Neither one of them got any minutes against Burton Albion or Burnley so they look the most likely to start at St James’ Park.

Sandwiched among the Manchester City assets is Eden Hazard (£11.0m), who has a 2.37% share of the votes. That’s ahead of a trip to Bournemouth, who have averaged 1.42 goal conceded per home match in 2018/19. The Belgian’s brand new strike partner Gonzalo Higuain (£9.5m) has entered the debate too with 1.31%, just a little ahead of Diogo Jota (£6.0m) on 1.25%.

Player statistics – Last four Gameweeks