Kun punishment ?

Ok I'll just confess I sold Kun and did Kun + Antonio > Lukaku + Hazard for -4 on Friday... needless to say I felt sick on Saturday and tbh I would have been clamouring "Kun punished his doubters!!!" had I owned him. But Lukaku and Haz performed on Sunday so I ended up with a net gain and in my view a more balanced team. I felt good going into the weekend and I still feel good now, actually would do it all over again now!
Let me say I'm a massive Kun fan, there is no denying his class, I've been owning him most season and captained him v Newcastle last season... but I'm not a stubborn person and like many have been challenging the comfort of owning Kun in the past 2 weeks. I came to the conclusion that I am better off without him.
First of all one cannot do a straight comparison of Kun vs another striker because he is much more expensive than any other player. So the appropriate comparison is Kun + Antonio/Allen v Lukaku/Costa + Hazard/Ozil/Coutinho because unlike last year we don't have a cheap Mahrez performing like a heavy hitter. This means Kun has to significantly outscore heavy hitters like Costa, Sanchez or Hazard over the season to be worth his 13m, unless you can rely on a player like Allen. I don't think it will be the case and I will also come back to the captaincy argument.
It also means that instead of 3 heavy hitters + Allen, I can afford 4 heavy hitters in midfield - I have Sanchez/Hazard/Coutinho/Firmino and i CAN always buy Allen as 5th mf!

Going through the usual arguments for Kun:

Captaincy/explosivity: "the guy can score 5 goals in a game!!!", "he is a FPL legend" etc. IMO there is no evidence he is more explosive than the other heavy hitters and will score 4-5 goals in a game this season. In my view there is as much probability Kun scores a treble than Sanchez or Hazard and City are not more attacking than Arsenal or Liverpool. Actually we all lost a lot of points captaining Kun week in week out out of fear and waiting for the 'big haul' whereas other stars have been earning double digit returns on a consistent basis. And arguably Hazard is as much a FPL legend than Kun (if Suarez ever comes back to England it will be a different story)

Focal point: it has been heavily debated and argued that with Pep Kun has to drop more and work for the team. The likes of KDB and Nolito find themselves also often in position upfront. I would argue Costa and Lukaku are more focal attacking points (pure strikers) for Chelsea and Everton

Consistency: you expect regular big hauls from a player of Kun's pedigree justifying giving him the armband most weeks. But this actually goes against Kun: not only has he not been consistent this season to say the least but I don't trust him to consistently outperform the likes of Sanchez, Hazard or Costa and my team looks more resilient with one more heavy hitter. Actually it has been argued that Kun goes by patches of heavy scoring which abruptly stop due to injury, international break travels/ champions league rotation, fall outs with Pep etc. There is more chance he will be less consistent than other players with no Europe and a better injury record.

Ownership: that's the scary part: Kun is 40+% owned and you can lose big when he goes goal crazy as most owners will captain him in any week. This goes both ways and depend on rank. It is brave to go without Kun if you're in the top 10k but if you think like me that Hazard + Lukaku will score more points than Kun + mid price midfielder then it's a fantastic opportunity to climb rank like I did this week !

Penalties: He is on pens for City just like Haz is on pens for Chelsea, actually he has missed a few...

There are more strong arguments against Kun:

Surgery: Shoe horning Kun and quickly selling when he gets injured or goes missing involves repeated hits. Having 8-11m priced players allows to switch according to form.

Stats: his stats even on just last weekend are not so impressive: much worse than Zlatan and inline with the likes of Costa, Lukaku, Austin and Benteke for attempts, SiB and SoT. The point with Kun is he has that killer instinct meaning he doesn't need as many attempts to score. Even if we forget about the season so far and assume his conversion is better than others (which hasn't been the case this season so a big if), I don't think his stats support the price difference.

Price rises: having a bunch of 8-10m priced players allows flexibility on transfers to benefit from price hikes. Aguero is 40+% owned and super expensive so won't rise much.

In conclusion: obviously don't sell Kun as he looks to pick up form, he remains a special player but the case for going without him this season is strong based on current evidence.
For sure I will bury my head under the pillow when he hosts Boro next GW but I have been nervous watching the likes of Chelsea or Liverpool this season when I didn't own their key assets! (To be revisited if he goes on to score 5 v Boro!)

If you don't have a top rank, can handle the stress and don't think Allen is the new Mahrez (he certainly looks good now) or you can go for a cheap defense then you may very well be better off without Kun and with a mighty midfield of 4 heavy hitters !