Fantasy Football Captain Picks Gameweek 36

Welcome to Football Captain Picks Gameweek 36.
Well, here we are, the run in, the final strokes, the end is near. How on earth did we get here so fast? It was only the other day that we were looking at the promoted teams as well as the new managers and their signings. It’s all happening very fast. And fast it is happening again this week with the gameweek still in progress but with no time to spare: the all-important GW 36 is upon us, just 48h after this double malarkey ends. I love this game!

First word is one of caution – the deadline is on Friday, 7pm!

This is the week where many a manager will be looking to deploy their last chip, whether it being the Triple Captain (as is my case) or the Brighton Boost. The clock is ticking and, if that is your case, then, in all likelihood, GW36 will be the defining GW in terms of your overall rank given that gameweeks 37 and 38, despite being typically high scoring weeks (GW 38 anyway), are normally a bit random in terms of the line-ups and the actual big haulers. This makes your Captain choice even more important, especially if you are using the TC of course. No pressure then…

Well this should be very straightforward. When the good people at the FF247 headquarters first asked me to write this for GW 36 I immediately peeked at the fixtures and thought “this writes itself”: it’s Mo Salah at home to Huddersfield. The shortest captains article ever! Or is it?

Quentin Tarantino, one of my favourite directors out there, once produced this intriguing movie called Four Rooms in which the hotel bellboy Ted (Tim Roth) needs to attend four different room occupants in New Year’s Eve with very different and odd requests, the highlight being the penthouse where Quentin himself runs a show consisting of one of his mates placing a bet consisting of lighting his Zippo 10 times in a row or he loses one of his fingers! Old Ted is of course called to the penthouse to hold the knife that will or not cut said finger if and when the lighter fails. It does, of course, and in the blink of eye, Ted does his business and on he goes to attend to the demanding guests in the other rooms. It’s not the greatest of films but it makes you laugh and sometimes that’s all we can do. So, this is it, can you light your Zippo ten times in a row or will you be one finger less come GW 37?

The Babysitting Room: don’t take your eyes off the children.

Antonio Banderas is this gangster tough-love kind of father that threatens their children with severe punishments if they don’t behave while he takes the Mrs to the Réveillon party in the City. He of course rings Ted the bellboy and also threatens him making sure he looks after them in their absence. However, the brats are obviously not helping and Ted and in deed themselves are lucky to be alive come the end of the night given the amount of naughty stuff they come up with literally every minute.

Manchester City, the current champions, are your hotel room naughty brats under no supervision. And they too can spread destruction. They ended last season on 100 pts and 106 goals scored. They won’t be able to match that points tally even if they win all their remaining games, but they sure can reach the century on goals scored. Currently on 87 with 4 games in hand (this is written prior to the Utd game) they just need to keep the 2.5 goals scored per game ratio that they currently held. With games against Burnley, Leicester and Brighton in their last three, would you bet against them reaching such a milestone? These guys are not in the top of their FPL form mind but we all know what their capable of if let loose in the field of play with no supervision…

Raheem Sterling is currently the third highest scorer in the game with 217 with a game in hand. Only Salah (230) and Hazard (224) are above him. One statistic that I always look for is the Points Per Match ratio and it’s no surprise that Raheem tops that with a whopping 7.2 PPM for the season! He has scored 17 goals and with 5 goals in his last 4 premier league matches he’ll be looking to surpass last season’s tally of 18 goals scored. Ignore him and he’ll destroy the mini bar.

Sergio Aguero doesn’t really need argumentation to back him, does he? “You are being lazy” I hear from the back end of the room! Ok, let’s argue then. First, the negatives: he’s on some poor FPL recent form with only 1 goal and 3 assists in his last 5 starts. He has however been nursing an injury as we all know so I’m not sure we can read too much into that. However, in that same period he has a total of nine games in all competitions with 6 goals and 4 assists. He can do better, I know. And that’s why we can’t dismiss him. With already 3 premier league hat-tricks to his name this season he has 19 goals thus far and has a 0.66 goals per match ratio, the best in the league. You better have bellboy Ted looking for him during the 90´´ at Burnley or he may well set the curtains on fire, the brat.

The Witches Room: calling for a higher and pharaonic entity.

In this room, 5 witches, one of which is Madonna, are in this ritual worshiping the spirit of the goddess Diana. Each one is supposed to bring a bodily fluid and the one appointed to arrange semen has lost her supplies. She no doubt needs Ted…

Liverpool are top of the league at the time of writing and possibly more importantly they have 4 players in the FPL top 6 atm. They are of course Mo Salah (230), Sadio Mane (201), Robertson (192) and VVD (188). To put this into perspective, these guys are all ahead of people like Aubameyang, Aguero, Pogba, Kane, Son, etc.

Assuming you won’t be captaining a defender, Mo Salah and Mane are your go to options here really. The Egyptian king, despite all the criticism he’s been receiving, is currently the leading FPL scorer. He’s no Shane Duffy but with 19 goals to his name he’s still got it. Sure, his numbers have fallen in relation to last season but that was to be expected given that all eyes (and legs and feet) are now on him. Conversely this has significantly enhanced Sadio’s numbers but we’ll get to that in a minute. The Pharaoh is not in top form and he doesn’t really appear in many relevant stats but there is one that caught my eye and that’s his shot accuracy (48%) which is actually better from last season’s (47%). He also tops the count for shots on target with 56. Crucial goals against Southampton and Chelsea and a recent penalty assist (which he would’ve taken himself if it weren’t for bugger Milner to come on 5 minutes before that) suggest he may have a strong finish.

If you believe Salah’s fluids are not the ones needed to inspire Diana, you can always trust the armband to that man Sadio Mane. His progress from last season is very impressive. He’s already on a personal best 18 goals and +200 FPL points. Interestingly, or as a result, he’s having his worst assist record ever with only 3 of those to his name so don’t expect Mane’s witchery to help Salah’s cause. He shoots on site and with 77 shots to his name his shot accuracy also reads 48%. That means one goal every two shots on target! His recent form is promising with 4 goals and 1 assist in his last 6 premier league games, collecting 6 bps in the process. That reads 7 goals and 2 assists in the same period in all competitions which basically adds the three champions league games. In terms of likelihood of (some) returns his numbers are tricky. He has 15 matches in which he returned something (including 7 double digit hauls) and 17 blanks. That’s about 50% odds on to get some returns. However, in the 9 matches vs the current bottom 6 that he has played (he missed two, including the reverse fixture) he blanked in 6 of them and he reached double digits in the other 3. That means that by skipping Mane you are either in for the big bucks or to fail miserably.

The Third Room: Tied and gagged to champions league?

In the third room, bellboy Ted – remember him? – sh*ts his pants. He’s in to bring some ice and he finds a looney couple on some kind of marriage crisis that has the gagged wife tied to a chair while the husband has a gun to her face (chill Cookie! ). Ted tries to talk his way out of that situation (he needs to have a look at the children in room one – remember them?) which he eventually does but not before the man has a nervous breakdown and it all ends in tears of happiness and despair.

And that’s our lead to Tottenham Hotspur and their Champions League VAR antics. There they were gagged and facing elimination when Ted, errh VAR, came to the rescue and handed them a deserved and heroic champions league semi-final. As for City, well the kids will be alright…

Heung-Min Son is the only name you need to hear and if you have got him you have to consider him for the armband. Sure, his FPL stats haven’t been great recently but if you take out the City game, he has 4 goals in the last 8 matches that he started. Three of which happened when Kane was out injured. He can still score when playing alongside Kane but there’s no denying that he’s more appealing when Kane is out. The “eye test” also suggest a man in fine form looking at his recent CL displays against Manchester City so don’t write off a double-digit haul for him against West Ham. The obvious caveat here is the tied and gaggled wife, that is, Pochettino being forced to prioritise the champions league, especially as they beat Brighton in midweek and now that Chelsea failed to leapfrog them, so do keep an eye on their potential line-up and perhaps look elsewhere if Sonny looks like being rested for the West Ham match at all. Although he is suspended for the Ajax game so you should be ok.

And if that’s the case, I bring you Lucas Moura. The Brazilian has a few tricks in his locker and has a fierce shot. He has 10 goals for the season from 34 shots, 16 of which were on target making it a shot accuracy of 48%. He had a great start to the season but lost his spot to injury and then to a returning and rising Son but throughout the season he has chipped in with the odd goal and assist proving that the focus is there as the goal against Liverpool and of course his notable hattie in the victory to Huddersfield are recent examples. Everyone noticed that he was the man Poch relied upon when Kane exited the first leg of the CL tie with City and since then he has looked integral to their attack and seems nailed on for the foreseeable. This is a good footballer that can and will produce FPL returns when given consistent playtime so another stellar performance from him against on the beach West Ham is not out of reach.

The Penthouse Room: the party is truly on.

Meanwhile, in the penthouse, Quentin Tarantino and his friends, including a strangely discreet Bruce Willis, are full on with the Zippo bet. Ted resists the temptation – he doesn’t really want to be cutting fingers on New Year’s Eve – but there’s a few quid for him too, regardless of the outcome, if he stays, so, after some deliberation, he tells them that he will stay and play on the condition that Claude Puel leaves the building!

Well, perhaps that’s not entirely true, but the party was on and after a few successful attempts the Zippo failed, Ted cuts the finger and off he goes with the money.

That’s Jamie Vardy for you right there ladies and gentlemen. Whenever he scores you always got this feeling that a Zippo failed somewhere and he mercifully-less cut someone’s finger and left with the prize. Let’s face it, your are unlikely to give him the armband given the personnel available elsewhere and the implications of not going with one from Liverpool or City but if you are feeling maverick, in need of something different to (re) ignite your love for the game or just bored, know that Vardy tops the form chart with 8.3 points per game (Ok, Chris Wood tops that with 8.5, but he is no finger chopper), has 16 goals for the season (9 of which came in his last 10 games) and was reborn under Brendan Rodgers. The downside here is that their opponents Arsenal have tightened up (a bit, it’s all relative!) recently and haven’t conceded many goals away from home with only 3 in their last 4. However, games between these two teams tend to be high scoring affairs as the average for home and away reads +3 goals scored. Vardy has 6 in the 8 games he played against Arsenal, so yeah, fingers are being chopped here as soon as that Zippo defence fails.

It’s been a pleasure writing this piece and I’ll be satisfied if it helps your choice for this week.

Thanks for reading Fantasy Football Captain Picks Gameweek 36. This article was written by DMC.

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