This article aims to help Fantasy Premier League (FPL) Managers in their choice for the best captaincy option for the forthcoming Gameweek by combining form and fixtures.
It will now aim to help FPL Managers in their choice for the best defensive assets to pick for the forthcoming gameweek by combining form, fixtures and clean sheet odds.
In Gameweek 16, the model’s top pick, Harry Kane, frustratingly failed to deliver attacking returns in what was a convincing 3-0 win over Hull. This means that this strategy now has a six out of nine success rate. (Success is derived from whether the model’s top pick delivers attacking returns or not. However, this will be reviewed, to see whether a new method of success can be found. Any suggestions are most appreciated).
The clean sheet analysis did have much better success, including the aforementioned fixture vs. Hull. Tottenham, Chelsea and Stoke all featured inside the top 5 most likely to keep a clean sheet according to the clean sheet method.
Before I take a look at Gameweek 17’s best captaincy targets, let’s have a quick recap on how I use form and fixtures to come to achieve this.
REFINING THE METHOD
The captaincy section will now focus completely on the form and fixtures elements and remove the odds section altogether.
For this method, I am going to take the 10 most popular captaincy options (at time of writing), according to the FFScout captaincy poll and rank them 1-10 ranking according to the difficulty of the fixture, which is worked out using goals conceded, big chances conceded and goal attempts in the box conceded from the last four games.
I then apply the same ranking to form, looking at points per game, goals and assists over the last four games. This article will now factor in the players PPG from their last 2 home and last 2 away games respectively, higher weighting will be given according to the player’s fixture. E.g. if a player is playing in an away fixture, their away PPG will be taken into account, if 2 players PPG’s are still the same, then the players total PPG will be taken into account.
The article will now include the ‘clean sheet potential’ table, which is worked out with the form and fixtures elements from the captaincy section and then combined with clean sheet odds to give a total ranking based on clean sheet potential. This section will include the top 10 teams.
With all that in mind, let’s take at Gameweek 17’s results.
Fixtures
| Rank | Player | Fixture | Goals conceded | Big Chances Conceded | Goal attempts in box conceded | Total |
| 1.5 | Costa | Palace (A) | 9 | 8 | 45 | 62 |
| 1.5 | Hazard | Palace (A) | 9 | 8 | 45 | 62 |
| 3. | Payet | Hull (A) | 8 | 10 | 38 | 56 |
| 5. | Eriksen | Burnley (H) | 7 | 5 | 36 | 48 |
| 5. | Kane | Burnley (H) | 7 | 5 | 36 | 48 |
| 5. | Mane | Everton (A) | 6 | 9 | 33 | 48 |
| 7. | Defoe | Watford (H) | 8 | 6 | 30 | 44 |
| 8. | KDB | Arsenal (H) | 5 | 7 | 30 | 42 |
| 9. | Sanchez | Man City (A) | 8 | 7 | 23 | 38 |
| 10. | Ibrahimovic | West Brom (A) | 4 | 4 | 26 | 34 |
Form
| Rank | Player | PPG | Goals | Assists | Home PPG | Away PPG |
| 1. | Eriksen | 12.25 | 5 | 2 | 18.5 | 6 |
| 2. | Sanchez | 12.25 | 6 | 2 | 9.5 | 15 |
| 3. | Ibrahimovic | 7.25 | 3 | 1 | 5.5 | 9 |
| 4. | Kane | 4.75 | 2 | 0 | 7.5 | 2 |
| 5. | Mane | 7 | 1 | 4 | 7 | 7 |
| 6. | Costa | 6.75 | 2 | 2 | 6.5 | 7 |
| 7. | Hazard | 4.5 | 1 | 0 | 2.5 | 6.5 |
| 8. | Defoe | 3.5 | 1 | 0 | 5 | 2 |
| 9. | Payet | 5.5 | 1 | 2 | 4 | 7 |
| 10 | KDB | 2.75 | 0 | 1 | 4 | 1.5 |
Clean Sheet Potential
| Rank | Team |
| 1. | Tottenham |
| 2. | West Ham |
| 3. | Chelsea |
| 4. | Middlesbrough |
| 5. | Manchester United |
| 6. | Stoke |
| 7. | Southampton |
| 8. | Bournemouth |
| 9. | Sunderland |
| 10. | Leicester |
Results
| Rank | Player | Fixture | Form | Total |
| 1. | Eriksen | 5 | 1 | 6 |
| 2. | Costa | 1.5 | 6 | 7.5 |
| 3. | Hazard | 1.5 | 7 | 8.5 |
| 4. | Kane | 5 | 4 | 9 |
| 5. | Mane | 5 | 5 | 10 |
| 6. | Sanchez | 9 | 2 | 11 |
| 7. | Payet | 3 | 9 | 12 |
| 8. | Ibrahimovic | 10 | 3 | 13 |
| 9. | Defoe | 7 | 8 | 15 |
| 10. | KDB | 8 | 10 | 18 |
Conclusion
Taking form and fixtures into account, Christian Eriksen is the most likely to deliver attacking returns, according to this method. The Dane faces a Burnley side who have improved slightly in the fixture table recently, their numbers of big chances conceded and goal attempts in the box conceded have gone down slightly. Having said this, the Spurs attacking midfielders’ home form catapults him to the top of the results table with a record 18.5 PPG.
Diego Costa sits second in the results table this week, largely down to an impressive fixture against a porous Crystal Palace side who have conceded nine times in the last four Gameweeks. Their big chances conceded and goal attempts in the box conceded remains consistently high, couple all this with the Chelsea man’s consistency to score points in any given Gameweek, FPL managers may feel safer with the armband on the Spaniard
The differential captain this week comes in the frame of Dimitri Payet, despite a low score on the form table, this has shown signs of improvement, certainly in very recent games and his all round involvement seems to be improving along with it. The Frenchman sits third in the fixture table with a plum home-tie against Hull City, who have the biggest chances conceded (10) and second highest goal attempts in the box conceded (38) out of any side on the table.
