Leicester and Liverpool options go head-to-head for the captaincy this weekend.
They both face favourable home fixtures in Gameweek 14 as Everton and Brighton come to the King Power Stadium and Anfield respectively.
To help you make the tough decision we’ve got another edition of Captain Sensible.
As ever, we’ll go through the underlying statistics for each of the candidates and compare them against the defensive data of their upcoming opponents.
As this article uses data from the Fantasy Football Scout Members Area, only those signed up for the 2019/20 season can access it in full.
Captain Poll
For the third Gameweek in a row, Jamie Vardy (£9.7m) is the most popular captain option.
Ahead of a home meeting with Everton, 29.9% of the voters have leant their backing to the Leicester City forward.
It’s not hard to understand why. Over the last five Gameweeks, Vardy has been remarkably reliable, scoring seven times during that period.
Furthermore, since Gameweek 4, he has registered just one blank at the King Power Stadium, registering 9.6 points per game there between then and now.
Meanwhile, Everton are without a clean sheet away from home since Gameweek 1 and are potentially about to lose manager Marco Silva to the sack.
Not far behind Vardy in the poll is Sadio Mané (£12.2m), who has a 24.8% share of the votes as of Thursday lunch-time.
The Liverpool man and his colleagues will host a travel-sick Brighton side on Saturday afternoon, who have conceded an average of 2.3 goals per game in their last three away matches.
Meanwhile, Mané himself is on an encouraging run of form at Anfield. He has registered an attacking return there for the last four Premier League matches in a row and you have to go back to Gameweek 3 for the last time he blanked in Merseyside this season.
A long way off in third place is Raheem Sterling (£12.0m), backed by just 6.6% of the voters in the poll.
Arguably, the Manchester City man was unfortunate not to get his eighth league goal of the campaign against Chelsea after a controversial VAR call, and there are clearly some Fantasy managers left who believe he has more to deliver.
This week it’s a trip to Newcastle which is perhaps cause for patience. The Magpies have conceded at least twice in three of their last four matches although they have been much harder to beat at home.
In front of their own fans, only Leicester (three) have conceded fewer goals than Newcastle this season (four).
Mohamed Salah (£12.2m) is currently fourth in the poll with a 6.1% share of the vote.
After 90 minutes midweek, there is certainly less concern about his ankle problems and, like Mané, he gets to face a defence that tends to be quite obliging away from home.
The Egyptian himself has scored in all but one of Liverpool’s home matches in the Premier League this season.
The 5.8% of managers who backed Tammy Abraham (£8.0m) in the captain poll will be hoping for good news from Frank Lampard in his Friday press conference after he sustained a knock to the hip in the Champions League.
If he does start against West Ham then he could have an enjoyable Saturday afternoon. The Hammers have been very poor defensively recently, conceding three goals in each of their last three matches.
As Fantasy managers continue to get positive vibes from Jose Mourinho’s arrival at Spurs, Harry Kane (£10.8m) and Son Heung-min (£9.7m) are naturally attracting some support for the captaincy.
They have been backed by 4% and 3.9% respectively for the visit of Bournemouth to north London.
Christian Pulisic (£7.5m) who has more points than any other Chelsea player since Gameweek 10, has been garnered the support of 3.2% for that meeting with West Ham.
Kevin de Bruyne (£10.2m), Benjamin Mendy (£5.8m), Gabriel Jesus (£9.5m) and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang (£11.0m) are the only other options with more than a 1% share.
4 years, 4 months agoHaving a tough time deciding whether to captain Vardy or Mane. Had it on Mane all week but this article's got me thinking. Hmmm