The top 10,000 Fantasy Premier League managers have largely kept faith with Tottenham Hotspur despite their recent fixture-swing.
And it looks as if they have already been vindicated in that decision.
65% of these managers held onto the attacking double-up of Harry Kane (£11.0m) and Son Heung-min (£9.5m) for a tricky meeting with Manchester City, each one of them registering an attacking return.
Specifically, 86.7% of this rank bracket took Kane into Gameweek 8, his ownership at that level shrinking only as low as 85.4% for Saturday’s visit of the Citizens to north London.
Counting his yellow card, Kane scored four points thanks to his assist for Giovani Lo Celso‘s (£6.9m) second-half finish, extending his run without a blank to eight matches.
And, despite the difficulty of this match on paper, 26.2% of the top 10k still trusted Kane with the captaincy. Only Bruno Fernandes (£10.7m), backed by 28.3%, convinced more managers in that bracket to captain him than the Spurs man.
That ensured Kane still wields significant power in the top 10k, offering effective ownership at that level of 111.4%, the most of any player.
With Fernandes, Kevin De Bruyne (£11.6m) and Hakim Ziyech (£8.2m) enticing Fantasy managers in midfield, it is unsurprising that Son Heung-min (£9.5m) suffered a higher loss of owners in the top 10k.
The South Korean boasted 87.1% ownership at this level for Gameweek 8, which dropped to 74.1% for Gameweek 9.
However, the majority of his backers kept faith in Son, despite the Manchester City fixture, as he remains the most popular midfielder in the top 10k.
These managers were richly rewarded at the first hurdle, as Son scored 10 points in Gameweek 9, finding the net, keeping a clean sheet and earning two bonus.
Courtesy of Mohamed Salah‘s (£12.3m) enforced absence, Fernandes bursts into the template for Gameweek 9, already selected by 48.9% of the top 10k.
He has already racked up significant sway at this level, considering that he was the most captained by top 10k managers for Gameweek 9. That made for effective ownership of 77.2%, the second-highest of any FPL player.
An 11-point score for Gameweek 9 means Fernandes has already made an impact on the upper echelons of the Fantasy rankings.
With Liverpool defenders falling even further by the wayside this season, it is no shock to see the majority of re-modelling in the top 10k came at the back for Gameweek 9.
Ben Chilwell (£6.0m) remains the most-popular defender in the top 10k although his ownership at this level swelled considerably from 34.6% to 49.1%.
Romain Saïss (£5.2m) has left the top-five defenders among top 10k managers, replaced as the third-most-popular by Kyle Walker-Peters (£4.6m).
Meanwhile, even Kurt Zouma (£5.4m) has dropped out of the top five, Max Kilman (£4.3m) finally creeping in, sat in 23.9% of top 10k teams.
Sunday’s meeting between Fulham and Everton at Craven Cottage has boosted the Fantasy potential of Dominic Calvert-Lewin (£7.8m).
His top 10k ownership has increased by 8.4 percentage points over the international break while he arrived in Gameweek 9 as the third-most-popular captain option at this level (12.4%).
The number of managers in the top 10k who are yet to deploy a chip continues to get smaller.
After the Gameweek 9 deadline, just 28.6% of these have kept their entire complement intact, while 45% have now used at least one chip.
As you can see, the Wildcard was the most popular of those for Gameweek, used by 6.9% of the top 10k.
Interestingly, we see the continued commitment to Spurs players even here, with Kane kept by 59% of top 10k Wildcards and 41.7% of such managers retaining Son.
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5 days, 9 hours agoAs a Rich (C) and a Bruno non owner I'm not sure how to feel....