Mohamed Salah (£13.3m) and Harry Kane (£12.5m) have emerged as the two outstanding candidates for the Fantasy Premier League (FPL) Double Gameweek 31 captaincy.
The question for many is how to choose between them and, of course, are there any other options that are being overlooked.
First, we will assess the fallout of the captain poll, before then analysing the best options, Rate My Team (RMT) and the Premier Fantasy Tools ratings ahead of Saturday’s 11:00 GMT deadline.
THE CAPTAIN POLL
As you can see, Mohamed Salah’s lead in the Fantasy Football Scout captain poll is a hugely significant one. After producing five attacking returns in as many matches, the Liverpool midfielder has attracted the support of 69.13% of voters.
Harry Kane, meanwhile, sits in second, having been backed by 10.8% of FPL managers.
Wout Weghorst (£6.4m) occupies third place with 3.37% ahead of his double-header, followed by Andrew Robertson (£7.3m) and Kevin De Bruyne (£11.7m), on 3.09% and 2.22% respectively.
MOHAMED SALAH
On Tuesday, Mohamed Salah suffered further heartbreak away from Liverpool as Egypt failed to qualify for the World Cup. FPL’s top-scoring player lasted the full 120 minutes and uncharacteristically blazed his team’s first spot-kick over the bar.
That perhaps slightly increases the risk of minute-management of some variety in Gameweek 31 but then again, teammates Luis Diaz (£8.1m), Diogo Jota (£8.3m) and Sadio Mane (£11.7m) also got run-outs for their respective countries on the same evening – the former not finishing Colombia’s match against Venezuela until the early hours of Wednesday morning.
For the Reds, the hope is now that the events of midweek will make Salah even more determined to finish the season strongly.
The Egyptian boasts a stunning tally of 20 goals and 11 assists in 27 Premier League appearances this term. Blanking just five times when starting, he has been in a class of his own for the most part.
The underlying numbers only amplify his appeal: Salah’s 115 goal attempts, 92 shots in the box and 34 big chances are all league-leading figures, while his recent numbers suggest he has been a little unfortunate not to return more, given that three of his strikes in his last six appearances have arrived from the spot. That means he has scored just one non-penalty (np) goal from a np-xG tally of 4.30 – no player has underachieved more in that time.
MOHAMED SALAH – LAST SIX MATCHES
| Metric | Total |
| Goals | 4 |
| Assists | 1 |
| Double-digit hauls | 2 |
| FPL points | 44 |
| FPL points per start | 8.6 |
| Non-pen xG | 4.30 |
| xA | 1.88 |
(last six matches – ars/bha/WHU/LEE/NOR/bur)
Notably, Salah also has a fine record against this weekend’s opponents, Watford, with nine goals and two assists in just seven Premier League outings against the Hornets.
Liverpool’s Anfield form is also worth flagging: they are on a nine-game Premier League winning streak on home turf, and now have the chance to leapfrog Manchester City into first – for a few hours at least. The league’s highest scorers have found the net 27 times in that period while keeping a remarkable seven clean sheets in the process.
For Watford, there was a hint of progress in their 2-1 win at Southampton last time out, but prior to that, 4-0 and 4-1 drubbings at the hands of Wolverhampton Wanderers and Crystal Palace suggests plenty of work still needs to be done, which is reflected in their 10.27 np-xGC figure in the last six matches, the fourth-highest total in the division.
HARRY KANE/SON HEUNG-MIN
