A large number of Fantasy Premier League managers in the top 10,000 have signed Sergio Aguero (£11.3m) for Double Gameweek 25.
Ominously, a chunk of those high-level players have also activated their Triple Captain chips too.
Manchester City striker Aguero has taken Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang‘s (£11.2m) place as the third most popular forward in the top echelon of the game.
Going into Gameweek 24, the Arsenal man was in 31% of teams in the top 10k, with Raul Jiménez (£6.5m) and Marcus Rashford (£7.7m) the only two ahead of him, on 59% and 91% respectively.
However, the allure of fixtures against Arsenal and Everton, although starts in both are not guaranteed, has persuaded 40% of the top 10k to ensure they have Aguero in their ranks.
Leroy Sané (£9.7m) remains the most popular of the Double Gameweek players in the top 10k, sitting in 63% of squads, up from 48.7%.
It looks as if Eden Hazard (£10.9m), who hauled against Huddersfield, was the fall-guy for those signing Sané, as his representation at the top level shrunk massively from 48.6% to 29.3% between Gameweeks 24 and 25.
The City man is the most-captained player in the top 10k, with 38.82% of the managers at that level handing him the armband. Given the decision of many to replace Hazard, who scored twice against Huddersfield, with Sané, the pressure is now on the German to deliver in his two outings.
Aguero is the second most-captained on 28.5%, with Richarlison (£6.8m) on 20% and Raheem Sterling (£11.3m) on 12.4%.
In total there are no more than four Double Gameweek assets in the squad of most popular players among the top 10,k – although only three of them are confirmed starters.
The fourth is Lucas Digne (£5.3m) who missed Everton’s first fixture of the Double Gameweek on Saturday through suspension.
The rest of FPL have taken a different approach to the Double Gameweek.
Aguero is owned by a smaller contingent when all six million players are considered but remains in the top three most popular forwards.
Sané and Richarlison are also present, but Digne is not. The most attractive defensive option for the Double Gameweek is Manchester City goalkeeper Ederson (£5.6m).
Crucially, the Double Gameweeks has not quite swayed the masses as much as it has the elite level players.
The most popular captain in overall in FPL this weekend is Mohamed Salah (£13.6m), with a 26.5% share. Aguero is second
Meanwhile, the Triple Captain chip has received some attention among the top 10k with Manchester City playing twice.
The number of managers to have deployed that particular chip in or before Double Gameweek 25 jumped from 11.86% to 20.06%. That means 8.2% were brave enough to pull the trigger.
There were also some Triple Captain chips played across the wider world of FPL, but not on the same scale.
28.7% of managers overall had deployed the Triple Captain in the first 24 Gameweeks, that number increasing to 30.75% once Gameweek 25 was factored into the equation.
Aguero looks to have the most heavily backed in the Triple Captaincy, earning 51,000+ augmented armbands.
You will have also noticed that 2.15% of managers in the top 10k wielded their Free Hit chip this week too.
Above, we can see that even in these Gameweek-specific squads, managers have not gone overboard on the Double Gameweeks.
They are seven players in the Gameweek 25 Free Hit template, Aguero, Richarlison, Sané, Sterling, Gylfi Sigurdsson (£7.4m), Michael Keane (£4.9m) and Jordan Pickford (£5.0m).
5 years, 2 months agoSterling & Firmino > Auba & Mane? -4
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