Fantasy Premier League managers are faced with a traditional shoot-out between Liverpool and Manchester City for the Gameweek 15 captaincy.
With Manchester United, Spurs and Leicester all facing more evenly-matched opponents during the Boxing Day fixtures, attention is firmly on Mohamed Salah (£12.4m), Kevin De Bruyne (£11.8m) and their colleagues.
They face West Bromwich Albion and Newcastle United respectively, two favourable opponents – but which asset is the best for the armband?
As usual, the Captain Sensible article is here and ready to help you make the best choice.
As this uses extensive data from the Fantasy Football Scout Premium Members Area, only those with a valid subscription can access it in full.
CAPTAIN POLL
Unsurprisingly, it is Salah who tops the captain poll for Gameweek 15. West Bromwich Albion have conceded the second-highest number of goals both in all matches this season (17), and on the road (14).
And let’s not forget how hot Salah’s form has been anyway. In just half-an-hour at Selhurst Park, he racked up 16 points, having averaged 8.8 points per game in the four outings beforehand.
As a result, a whopping 67.1% of you are going for a “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’ approach for Boxing Day.
Even though he is the second-most-backed candidate for Gameweek 15, De Bruyne trails the Egyptian by 58.2 percentage points.
The case for the Belgian is not as much of a downgrade as some might think though. He has returned points of some kind in each of his last three at the Etihad Stadium, securing two double-digit hauls and averaging 9.3 points per game.
Meanwhile, the Magpies have an unenviable record when visiting Manchester City. They have lost their last five Premier League visits to the Etihad Stadium by a combined score of 21-3. Three of those meetings saw the home side score at least five times.
Bruno Fernandes (£11.0m) has picked up 7.5% support for the armband despite scoring 17 points against Leeds and blanking in just one Premier League away match since joining Manchester United.
Leicester only have one clean sheet at home this season, so Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s men will fancy their chances of scoring, as do the 1.9% of our voters who backed Anthony Martial (£8.7m) for the captaincy.
Still, the Red Devils have been somewhat porous on the road in spite of their impressive win ratio in such matches, conceding an average of 1.5 goals per game away from home.
That’s good news for the 3.8% of our readers who voted for Jamie Vardy (£10.2m) in the poll. A fifth double-figure haul of the campaign at Spurs will be of great encouragement to them, although only one of those has come at the King Power Stadium, where Vardy averages 4.7 points per game this season.
Harry Kane (£11.0m), Jack Grealish (£7.8m), Andrew Robertson (£7.3m), Sadio Mané (£11.9m), Riyad Mahrez (£8.3m) and Olivier Giroud (£6.7m) are the only other players backed by more than 1%.
KEY MATCHES
Liverpool v West Bromwich Albion
3 years, 4 months agoAm I crazy to consider:
Cancelo + Grealish --> TAA + Raphinha?
Rationale is that Cancelo may well be rested vs Newcastle, and TAA is part of my DGW19 plan anyhow and playing vs WBA. Grealish could punish me but fixtures not good and again doesn't have a DGW19 fixture.
Other transfers to build up to DGW19 would be something along the lines of sterling, Nyland, Brewster, DCL out and Bowen, Adams, Fabianski, Werner/Vardy in