Paradigm shift! Surely it’s not too soon to slap that headline on the game now, the captain poll having changed for the first time since, I want to say, 2022, but ‘in recent memory’ will suffice now that I’ve spent my morning trawling the Captain Sensible articles (spoiler: it’s been all Erling Haaland, all the time since Gameweek 16, when it was Bukayo Saka).
Last week, we kept the faith:
It’s four blanks in five Gameweeks for Erling Haaland – so is it time to back against him with the Fantasy Premier League (FPL) captaincy?
TL;DR: no.
And four weeks ago, we wouldn’t dare:
In the weekly article that could really be retitled ‘Do you dare bet against Erling Haaland?”, we consider the best captain for FPL Gameweek 20…
Yet now, four weeks on since FFScout Tom threw down the gauntlet with that ‘do you dare’ (spoiler: we didn’t), a different answer has hoisted its standard. And it’s fortune favours the brave, as my mate Terence liked to say. Oh, some of you quietly demoted Leeds’ favourite Nordic son weeks ago but this is new ground we’re treading, most of us, we from the comments, the ‘who’re-we-captaining this week’?
This week, it’s Bruno Fernandes on the top step, that same chap who did for my team not so many seasons ago with the same single-digit malaise that Pep’s number nine has fallen into. My luck, this will be just the week for a return to form: newly-essential Mr. Routes-to-Points enjoying a quiet afternoon while the towering metallic forward stood on second in the captain poll clicks back into gear and bangs them in over in London.
I’ve an axe to grind with Fernandes; always seem to draft him in when he’s running cold, FPL-wise, doing something useless like defending or captaining or some such. He and Trent Alexander-Arnold and Mohamed Salah, they’ve all vexed me, essential (yes!) as they were. Not so Haaland, and why I couldn’t tell you. Is it the fact that David Squires draws him as a robot? Suppose he were, then I couldn’t blame him for blanking, could I? Only the tech team at the Etihad. But I’ve not captained him this week, and I’ll admit to having something akin to feelings about that. Perhaps he’s merely a cyborg, flesh and grey matter enhanced with unobtanium?
Whatever it is, Erling, I’m not cross with you. But if you could just do your best Viktor Gyökeres impression tomorrow and carve out some space for Antoine Semenyo? My team could really use the points, cheers.
