Despite 10 teams missing out on Gameweek 18, all of the Premier League’s current top three are still in action.
That means there are options beyond Mohamed Salah (£13.1m) for the latest captaincy decision, especially for the more maverick managers amongst us.
First, we will assess the fallout of the Gameweek 18 Captain Poll, before then analysing the best options, Rate My Team (RMT) and the Premier Fantasy Tools ratings ahead of Saturday’s 13:30 GMT deadline.
THE CAPTAIN POLL
As you can see from the current results, Mohamed Salah is the leader of the Gameweek 18 captain poll. The Egyptian midfielder has accumulated 52.57% of total votes from our users at the time of writing.
Manchester City’s Phil Foden (£8.0m) is in second place, backed by 9.44% of users, ahead of his trip to Newcastle United on Sunday.
Ollie Watkins (£7.7m) occupied third place with 8.53% of votes before Aston Villa’s game was postponed, with the top-five list completed by Manchester City duo Joao Cancelo (£6.8m) and Kevin De Bruyne (£11.8m), with 6.91% and 6.2% respectively.
MOHAMED SALAH AND TRENT ALEXANDER-ARNOLD
Mohamed Salah netted his 22nd goal of the season on Thursday, and in doing so, has equalled Jamie Vardy’s (£10.6m) record of scoring or assisting in 15 successive Premier League games. That means he has blanked just once across the opening 17 Gameweeks, as he continues to show a frightening level of consistency.
However, it’s worth noting that Trent Alexander-Arnold (£8.2m) has outscored Salah in six of the last seven Gameweeks, thanks to a goal, four assists, four clean sheets and 12 bonus points.
SALAH V ALEXANDER-ARNOLD GAMEWEEKS 8-17
| Gameweek | Opponent | Score | Salah | Alexander-Arnold |
| 17 | Newcastle United (h) | 3-1 | 8 | 11 |
| 16 | Aston Villa (h) | 1-0 | 8 | 9 |
| 15 | Wolverhampton Wanderers (a) | 1-0 | 6 | 9 |
| 14 | Everton (a) | 4-1 | 15 | 2 |
| 13 | Southampton (h) | 4-0 | 6 | 9 |
| 12 | Arsenal (h) | 4-0 | 8 | 15 |
| 11 | West Ham United (a) | 2-3 | 5 | 12 |
| 10 | Brighton and Hove Albion (h) | 2-2 | 5 | 1 |
| 9 | Manchester United (a) | 5-0 | 24 | 10 |
| 8 | Watford (a) | 5-0 | 13 | 6 |
HOW HAS CAPTAIN SENSIBLE PERFORMED SO FAR THIS SEASON?
2 years, 4 months agoSince this could be the last gameweek for a while. Tempted to get burned one last time by going against Salah (c). A rested Spurs away should be a tough fixture and he has to blank sometime.
James v wolves I like (3 double digit hauls away, wolves toothless BUT chelsea out of form).
A rested Cancelo over Foden v a poor Newcastle side. ASM probably out and I own Wilson so if Newcastle do score he’s likely involved.
Totally rogue. Cash v Burnley. His attacking stats are pretty good and feel he’s due a goal. Decent clean sheet odds too.