Fantasy Football Captain Picks Gameweek 29

Fantasy Football Captain Picks Gameweek 29 2017/18
We are at that point in the season, where you likely already have a fair idea who will be your captain next game-week. Some weeks we’re blessed with a plethora of options and it’s then our job to disseminate data and present it back to you. This however, is not one of those weeks.

Init helpfully posts the captain ownership stats in the comments as the game-week begins, last week they showed it was pretty much a two horse race between Salah and Kane. Unless you’re mad, crazy or Matt (Aaron Mooy anyone?), most of you will likely be looking to one of those once again this week.

Of course, I could throw in a few differentials like, say, oh I don’t know… Aaron Mooy (sorry I couldn’t resist), or maybe I could do as AT suggested a few weeks back and use a bit of Pub Analysis; a manipulation of information to support a point of view (his words not mine). I don’t want to do either of those (as much as Mooy is a solid pick, no really..). So, this week we’ll be doing things slightly differently.

To start with I’ll be backing up facts with stats. I know, I know, everyone uses statistics, but do they put it in handy little tables for ease of use? They do? Oh, erm ok, well that’s what I’m doing anyway. If this does not suffice, fear not, there is more. Read on and all will be revealed.

Mo Salah (Newcastle, Home)

Mo Salah is of course one of the aforementioned standout options this week; Form? check, Fixture? check, Highly owned and likely highly captained? check and check again.

What else can I say about Mo that hasn’t been said before? Well, last week he was photographed in a Liverpool chippy and local park, apparently part of an Egyptian TV ad. There was even a lovely photo of Mo and couple of fans (Julie and Beryl) doing the rounds on Twitter. Beryl’s family said she was “made up” to meet Salah, and Julie said, “I’m feeling a bit famous! I’m gutted I didn’t wash my hair”. I’m not entirely sure why washing one’s hair is a prerequisite to meeting Mo Salah, maybe its like when my Granny used to tell me to “always wear clean underwear in case you get knocked over”, who knows.

So why captain Salah over the other fella? (we’ll get to him next). Well, Salah is what I would refer to as a safe pick. He’ll be highly captained this week, and as the highest owned player in the game, if he scores significantly more than the other fella, and he’s not your captain, your rank will suffer. Last week Mo delivered once again, a goal, an assist and 20 points for the masses, as Liverpool turned over the Hammers 4-1 at Anfield. Mo, I love you.

I was a bit of a Debbie downer on Newcastle in my last article. After our win against Man Utd in GW27 I’m feeling more upbeat, but contrary to popular opinion, us Newcastle fans are not all delusional (well not entirely), I expect this one will not go so well for us. In our 14 away games, we’ve lost 7 and conceded 23. Last week we threw away a 2 goal lead to draw 2-2 away to Bournemouth, which followed a similar capitulation in GW26 away to Palace. We shipped 3 goals to both Chelsea (3-0) and Man City (3-1) on the road prior to our recent score-draws; I expect a similar score-line this game-week. What are the chances of Mo Salah being involved in those inevitable goals? Pretty high. #Alwayscaptainsalah

So here are those handy little stats tables I promised you, the numbers in red will make sense when we get to the next fella (hopefully).

Kane (Huddersfield, Home)

The ‘other fella’ I’ve been referring to is of course Harry Kane. As it was last game-week, the big question for a lot of FPL managers this week will likely be; will Harry out-score Mo? The answer was no last week, but there wasn’t much in it to be fair. Harry left it late, popping up with the late winner in the 88th minute, 12 points and a huge sigh of relief for his GW28 backers.

Looking at the stats (go on have a look, it tookme ages to make those tables!) Salah clearly has the better home form, both in his last 5 and over the season. Salah has also scored double digits 13 times to Kane’s 8. Before you all checkout and simply stick it on Salah though, lets look a little closer at why you may in-fact be better going with Harry.

First off there’s the small matter of the Golden Boot. Harry is going for a hat trick of titles. He’s currently 1 goal ahead of Salah with 24 for the season. With 10 games to go, he’s on target to eclipse the 29 he scored last season, when, it’s worth noting he scored 15 in his last 10.

We should also consider Kane’s higher ceiling (no I’m not going back to my DIY referenced article back in GW4), what I refer to is the higher ceiling to his points over Salah. Salah has yet to score above 16, Kane has managed 17 points twice, but like the fella we’ll be talking about next (yes there is another), Kane is one of very few players likely to score 20+ points in any given game-week.

However, the main reason Harry may be the better option than Mo this week is the opposition (sorry Brookyboy). Despite their 1-2 win at the Hawthorns last game-week, Huddersfield are still third bottom of the form table (they’ve lost 4 of their last 6, and they’ve lost 9 of their 14 games away from the Kirklees/John Smith/Who Knows. Sounding pretty grim so far, it gets worse. They’ve got the second worst goal difference in the league (-23) and have only managed 2 clean sheets on the road all season, even West Brom scored against them, and they’re rubbish.

I’ve mentioned in past articles that Harry likes to score in multiples; in the reverse fixture back in GW7 Spurs beat Huddersfield 0-4 with Harry scoring twice. I have a feeling Harry has a 4 goal game in him before the season is over, could this be that game? Maybe.

Aguero (Chelsea, Home)

Salah and Kane will likely top the captain polls this week, but it would foolish to dismiss Aguero, despite City’s opponents this week. City still have their GW28 game against Arsenal to play as I’m writing this, but their Carabao cup victory gives an illustration on how that will probably pan out.

I’ll not bore you with all the stats but, it’s worth noting that Aguero has scored 11 goals in his last 5 at home, now that’s better than a slap in the face…

Chelsea have managed 5 clean sheets away from Stamford Bridge this season, but they all came against considerably weaker teams than a City team who have already scored 50 goals at the Etihad this season. Chelsea won the corresponding fixture 1-3 last season, Aguero lost his sh!t in that one and duly got his marching orders in the dying seconds, he was swiftly followed by Fernandinho in the ensuing fracas. Tensions run high in these games.

I think at this stage of the season you really need to pick your captain based on your own personal situation. Salah has almost double the ownership of Aguero (30.6%), and whilst that hardly makes Aguero a differential in the general sense, he would be a differential captain pick this week. So if you’re looking to make up ground, not averse to taking a risk, then Kun could be your (angry little) man.

Not Vardy

Jamie Vardy was pencilled in to take the final slot in this weeks article, but come on, is anyone really going to pick Vardy over this weeks other options?

So for want of not short-changing you, I instead turned to my fellow contributors and posed the question; ‘Who will you be Captaining this week, and why?’ Here’s what they had to say!

AT – Salah
It is Goliath vs Goliath for me; Kane vs Salah. Both have scored six in as many games in recent weeks but Salah can boast 3 assists over that period to Kane’s 0. Salah has blanked twice at home all season in the games he’s started, Kane has blanked 8 times at home (I’m not writing them out; it’s not even my bloody article!). Pool has scored 2+ in 8/14 home games. Newcastle have conceded 2+ in 7/14 away games, and 6 in their last 2 away matches against the top 6. The reverse leg ended 1-1, but I will not be wasting money by betting on a repeat. To avoid writing an essay on this, which I have a tendency to do when writing this sort of thing, Tottenham’s stats are worse. I’m going for Salah.

(AT warned me that I might need to check his facts, which tells me that all the above is from memory, he’s an impressive fellow is our AT).

Matt – Salah
I’ve decided to leave the armband on him all season bar the DGW’s. I think it will pay off in the long run.

(If he’s not waxing lyrical about his main man Mooy, our Matt is a man of few words!).

Elle – Salah
Salah, cos I f@cking agree with Matt. Seriously though, He’s the man of the moment, that’s Salah not Matt. He can’t stop scoring and/or assisting at this particular time. He’s well on top of his game.

Init – Kane
Gosh, it’s a bit early to be getting pushed into a corner! I usually take the capo pick on gut feeling as opposed to nearly every other decision I make, which are all pretty much based on stats. Not that either method is ever fool proof!

Gut feeling last week said Salah would almost inevitably score, but that Kane could score more, he probably should have. But didn’t. C’est la vie, there wasn’t a lot in it in the end.

I’m having déjà vu here then as I feel the same this week. In any Kane vs. Salah debate I think I would always take Kane just based on his ‘explosiveness’ potential. If I didn’t watch the games and just saw the results later, I wouldn’t be surprised to see a Kane hat-trick. I’d probably do a double take if I saw a Salah one.

Hence it’s Kane for me this week.

Swirly – Kane
They say you should always follow your gut, and this is one of those moments. Sure, he’s let me down in the past with being the obvious choice before getting nothing, but I just can’t see past Harry’s form and the fact he scored twice the last time the two sides met.

Cookie – Salah
It’s Salah for me, he has barely let me down whenever I have captained him this season and he continues to produce week in, week out. To be fair there is little obvious to choose between he or Kane for this week and to be honest I feel they will both score well and produce similar numbers.

Looking at the respective fixtures, I actually prefer Tottenham’s match at home to Huddersfield. I think Rafa will set up to try and frustrate Liverpool and they may take their time to break them down. However it is difficult to argue with Salah’s consistency – 13 double digit returns already so far this season (Kane has 8), 8.4ppg for Salah vs 6.4ppg for Kane, scores of 15, 13 & 10 over the last 3 GWs for Salah compared to 4,6 & 6 for Kane.

Throw into the mix that Spurs play Juventus in the CL in midweek and therefore Kane may get taken off if Spurs are cruising. Although Liverpool play a day earlier their tie is over having won 5-0 in Porto so Klopp will surely make changes for the 2nd leg and rest a few first teamers, therefore Salah should play most of the game vs. Newcastle.

Frankly there is so little to choose between the pair – both are great options for the week. But if I needed any more reason to capo Salah then it’s that no.2 in my mini-league owns Salah and not Kane. He is chasing me and cannot afford Kane without hitting so I assume he’ll capo Salah, in which case I’ll match his capo and take the benefit of Kane.

Kop – Salah
Rightly or wrongly (I know what my rank suggests!), I always pick my captain based on a gut feel and this week will be no different. Salah will be my captain. Kane will be vice-captain.

For the purposes of this piece let’s see if my gut is backed up by stats.

Quickly looking at their opposition this week we see that Huddersfield have conceded 21 shots on target which have led to eight goals, while Newcastle have conceded 22 shots on target leading to six goals. These stats are from their last four away games. As you can see there’s little to separate them.

Over their last four home league games Salah has had 41 touches in the opposition area compared to Kane’s 26. Salah has had 10 shots on target compared to Kane’s 14. Salah has created five chances compared to Kane’s 6. But the most important stat of all is that Salah has scored six goals compared to Kane’s three. Clearly Salah has been more clinical in front of goal.

The stats appear to favour Salah but should Kane manage to convert a number of the chances that will invariably fall his way this weekend he could easily score a hat-trick. Of course, so too could Salah. There’s little between them but I’m happy to back Salah. Obviously he gets an extra point per goal, and should Liverpool manage to keep a clean sheet he gets another point. Every point matters!

Rosco – Kane
As for me, well, I made a similar declaration to Matt a few weeks back, vowing to stick with Salah through till the bitter end (baring DGW’s of course). He’s repaid me in the last two, but I have a gut feeling about Kane this week. It also feels wrong to back Salah against my own club, I mean I’ve done it before, but it feels a little masochistic when there is such a good alternative available.

I think in the end there may be very little in it, I could change my mind last minute, but that always seems to hurt me. My final word on the matter is this; go with your gut, unless your gut tells you to go with Aaron Mooy, no good will come of that.

Thanks for reading Fantasy Football Captain Picks Gameweek 29. This article was written by Rosco

@eugoogooly

Gameweek Tracker GW29-38

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