Fantasy Premier League (FPL) managers are bracing themselves for a reduced round of fixtures, with two blank fixtures limiting the pool of options for a Blank Gameweek 29 captain.
The involvement of Mohamed Salah (£13.8m) and Liverpool in Sunday’s EFL Cup final opens the door for a low-risk armband punt.
Erling Haaland (£14.7m) is among the leading pretenders but faces stiff competition from alternative assets from Manchester United and Nottingham Forest, amongst others.
As usual, Captain Sensible highlights which assets have the best chance of delivering a big haul.
First, we will assess the fallout of the captain poll before analysing the best options, Rate My Team (RMT), and the Premier Fantasy Tools ratings ahead of Saturday’s 13:30 GMT deadline.
THE CAPTAIN POLL
A Cinderella season for Chris Wood (£7.3m) puts the elder statesman at the top of the scoring charts amongst Fantasy forwards. With 18 goals this term, the Forest marksman sits fourth for goals scored (18), considerably overperforming his expected goals (xG) tally of 10.05.
Despite his quiet display against Manchester City garnering just two penalty area touches and a solitary shot on target, it has done little to dissuade almost 30% of the captain poll vote.
Meanwhile, Erling Haaland ended a run of attacking returns in five successive starts, as the current champions Man City fell 1-0 at Forest.
If this was the Norwegian’s audition, he missed the mark in many ways, failing to hit the target and accruing just 0.15 xG.
Haaland vies for favouritism here – he’s less than 1% behind Wood ahead of Brighton and Hove Albion’s visit.
Bruno Fernandes (£8.4m) is in third place with over 16% (a figure that has increased since Thursday’s treble), followed by Justin Kluivert (£6.2m) and Beto (£5.1m).
THE PLAYER STATISTICS – LAST SIX MATCHES
