The Fantasy Premier League captaincy debate for Gameweek 7 continues to be wide open with a number of candidates all vying to be crowned the best option.

Manchester City and Liverpool both face fixtures that managers are finding hard to predict while Chelsea host Brighton and Spurs go up against a Southampton side with an unreliable defensive unit.

With so many options to consider, the Captain Sensible article is perhaps as important as its ever been.

As we do every single Gameweek, we have assessed the form of the leading candidates and the state of their upcoming opponents’ defences to see which ones tick the most boxes for captain success.

As this article uses data from the Fantasy Football Scout Members Area, only those who have signed up for the 2019/20 season can access it in full.

Captain Poll

Mohamed Salah (£12.5m) has returned to the summit of the Fantasy Football Scout Captain Poll but for Gameweek 7, his majority is not a particularly sizeable one. This season, the most popular skipper each week has typically pulled in the support of roughly 40% but this weekend, Liverpool’s Egyptian star has just 26.1% of the votes at the time of writing.

He is not in bad form, of course, his assist against Chelsea last time out his seventh attacking return of the campaign after just six matches. Salah has score four goals in total, that assist at Stamford Bridge his seventh of the campaign.

Perhaps what is stopping him from enjoying a true domination of the Captain Poll is the venue of his next match. Preparing for a trip to face Sheffield United, Salah remains goalless on the road this season, all four of his Premier League strikes coming at Anfield in 2019/20 so far.

Furthermore, the Blades may have only kept one clean sheet at Bramall Lane since promotion but they are yet to be thrashed as a Premier League side. Their 3-5-2 system has proved hard to break down on more than one occasion in the last six matches, so it will always be hard for Fantasy managers to predict a goal glut against them.

Looking likely to secure second place in the poll is Chelsea forward Tammy Abraham (£7.5m), who has pulled clear of the chasing pack in the last few days.

Ahead of Brighton’s visit to Stamford Bridge, the centre-forward has been selected as the best captain option by 15.9% of voters in the poll.

That’s not surprising based on Abraham’s form considering that he has scored seven goals in his last four matches, including a hat-trick against Wolves in Gameweek 5.

Next opponents Brighton have had a mixed bag of away fixtures this season, so far keeping clean sheets at goal-shy Watford and Newcastle. However, their only road trip at a top-six side so far resulted in a 4-0 defeat at the hands of Manchester City, which arguably could have been a heavier defeat.

Support for Abraham has grown in recent days, perhaps influenced by his absence from midweek action and Raheem Sterling’s (£12.1m) involvement against Preston. On Tuesday, the two Englishman were tied on 12%, but the Chelsea man has pulled clear by 3% since then.

The Manchester City midfielder remains in a similar position, with 11.8% of the votes ahead of a trip to Everton.

Sterling did miss last week’s 8-0 demolition of Watford, and scored at Deepdale in the EFL Cup third round, but neither of those things should count against him for Gameweek 7.

The rest in Gameweek 6 means he is arguably one of the most likely starters at Goodison Park on Saturday afternoon and so far this season, he has blanked away from home just once.

Sterling scored a hat-trick at West Ham on the opening weekend and also found the net in the Gameweek 3 trip to Bournemouth. He was also unfortunate not to get any attacking returns when Manchester City lost to Norwich as his header cannoned back off the post and Nicolas Otamendi (£5.5m) was close to converting a late cross.

Meanwhile, Everton have not kept a clean sheet since Gameweek 2 when they hosted a struggling Watford side. Since then they have conceded at least twice in every match home and away.

It is surprising then that both Sergio Aguero (£12.2m) and Kevin de Bruyne (£9.9m) are both backed by fewer than 10% in our latest captain poll.

Perhaps Fantasy managers are concerned about rotation ahead of next week’s Champions League hosting of Dinamo Zagreb but it seems unlikely that either of them will be benched given that neither played against Preston on Tuesday night.

Aguero is still yet to blank this season, scoring eight goals in six matches and providing two assists too but just 7.6% of the voters in our poll believe he is the best captain for Gameweek 7.

Meanwhile, de Bruyne has the support of just 4.6% after averaging nine points per game so far this season.

Completing the top five options in the poll is Tottenham’s Son Heung-min (£9.7m) who has the backing of 10.3%.

This weekend he faces a home match against Southampton having registered three attacking returns in his last two league outings.

Harry Kane (£11.0m) has also been considered for this match, but only 5.3% of the voters.

Trent Alexander-Arnold (£7.1m) and Sadio Mané (£11.6m) have the backing of 3.1% and 2.9% ahead of the trip to Sheffield United.

Finally, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang (£11.0m), Jamie Vardy (£8.9m), Roberto Firmino (£9.5m) and Mason Mount (£6.6m) are the only other candidates with more than 1% of the vote.

Player statistics – Last four Matches

Lessons learned from Gameweek 6:

• Southampton 1-3 Bournemouth
• Leicester City 2-1 Tottenham Hotspur
• Burnley 2-0 Norwich City
• Everton 0-2 Sheffield United
• Manchester City 8-0 Watford
• Newcastle United 0-0 Brighton and Hove Albion
• Crystal Palace 1-1 Wolverhampton Wanderers
• West Ham United 2-0 Manchester United
• Arsenal 3-2 Aston Villa
• Chelsea 1-2 Liverpool