Greetings, and welcome back for another round of FPL captaincy debate, the most important decision of your gameweek.
Week 31 went splendidly for your humble writer, and it is no surprise that picking a solid captain had much to do with the solid green arrow I received. I mentioned him as an option in last week’s column and I finally decided to put my faith in Andrew Robertson. He had scored at least six points in his previous nine straight league games, and I felt with hosting a side like Watford at Anfield, I had two very good routes to points of some sort, whether through attacking or defending. In the end, it was the defending that got the job done, and though it was not a monumental difference - to pick a player that outscored Mo Salah AND Harry Kane, and be brave enough to go my own way…well, that was plenty of reward.
Of course, had I given the armband to Heung-Min Son, then I would be positively glowing right now, but that is the benefit of getting a good result in reality that does not bear fruit in fantasy. The thrill of being a Spurs fan and getting such a convincing result (plus having my Son in my squad at all) was plenty to keep my endorphins humming along smoothly.
I did, admittedly, fair poorly in my predictions last week. While I typically do not provide exact predictions on any one game, I was fairly strong (and quite wrong) in three observations last week: Two had to do with the two most-appealing clubs from which to grab a captain from: Liverpool and Tottenham. My thought was that Liverpool were more likely to put up a lopsided score while Spurs might do something very Spursy and limp their way through their Newcastle match, but it wound up being quite the opposite, with Liverpool struggling to beat Watford and Tottenham exploding with goals against the Magpies. The third wrong prediction was thinking Chelsea, in this case Kai Havertz, were a good club to back in their home game against Brentford. Wow, that did NOT go the way I thought.
Hopefully, you can forgive a poor week of prognosticating though, if you can at least give me credit for addressing the overall most-important observation from last week, and that is - it is time to start looking for opportunities to go against the popular captaincy options if you are looking to gain significant ground in the rankings. Betting against Salah last weekend took bravery, it really did. Betting against him at home to Watford could be considered madness by many, but hey, at this stage of the season, a little madness can pay off.
This is not to suggest one should never captain a popular option simply for the sake of “being different.” With seven rounds to go, I am pretty certain I will back Salah for captain at least once or twice. But what I am positive about, is that I am not going to pick him every week and, if anything, I will be actively looking for other options. Because of the many “ghost teams” out there with the armband permanently on Salah, he is always going to be the top-captained player, right through the end of the season, but as we near the conclusion of this campaign, especially with Salah having gone quiet by his standards, we should see more and more managers higher up the rankings looking for alternatives, which, to me, is fantastic for the game. I have to admit, there was a month or so during the middle of the season where this column was beginning to feel a bit like a broken record. Like - which way am I going to say the same thing again this weekend but sound at least a little different? Which is to say, how do I sell Salah THIS week?
Well, despite my philosophy on captaincy strategy may seem like a direct attack on Salah, it will not take long to find out this week that, despite perhaps the toughest fixture of his season, I still think FPL’s best player deserves his place in the debate. So let’s not waste any more time and look at the Week 32 landscape for Captain Obvious…
Mo Salah
Two trains of thought regarding Salah this week. The first, and perhaps more popular take, based on recent returns, is that with a tough matchup like Manchester City, this would be an ideal week to look elsewhere for a captain, which immediately gives whichever captain you pick more weight because less overall people will have captained said player. The other way to look at this situation is to back Salah for pretty much the same reason - his overall captaincy numbers, while still very likely to lead all players again this week, should be lower than usual this week, especially the higher up the overall ranks you look.
Why look at it from the second perspective if the fixture is so unappealing? Well, there’s that, too. Yes, Manchester City are one of the very toughest in the league to score on, and it has been that way for several season now for Pep Guardiola. But City’s record only underscores just how talented Mo Salah is. The Egyptian international has, at minimum, scored a goal in four of Liverpool’s last five league games against the Citizens. That is a few seasons’ worth of results to pull from, and the fact that Salah’s scoring rate (80%) is pretty much on par with his league-wide average, then suddenly, there really is not much reason to be scared away by the fixture.
Now, to play devils’ advocate advocate…While Salah has had solid success in recent meetings against City, there is still reason to feel some trepidation about backing him this week. While this matchup has had its share of goals in the Guardiola/Klopp era, there have also been a couple of 0-0 scorelines. There have been times where it has been a defensive grindout and, considering the situation of this particular fixture, you can picture another tight affair here. An out-and-out winner of this match will be the front-runners to win the title, so no one will want to lose this. And, if Salah looks anything like he did last weekend, which is to say, rather ineffective, then that only adds to the possibility of a low-to-no scoring affair.
As will be repeated many times over as we head down the final stretch of the season, backing Salah with captaincy these days has as much to do with your rank situation and “effective ownership” numbers as it has to do with a simple matter of “who do I think scores the most this week?”. The only player who I feel you can say with confidence is as good, or possibly better, armband pick than Salah this week is Harry Kane. If you do not have Kane, then just remember, if you are picking an option not named Salah for the armband this week, you have to then hope Salah stays quiet, It could make for a tense final match of the round viewing experience.
Well, I kind of spilled the beans already, haven’t I? Already let the cat out of the bag. Already showed my hand, so to speak. Already…ok, enough “alreadys”, already. Assuming you have had access to the internet, or any other resource on planet Earth, for the past month or so, you are quite aware of how good of form Harry Kane, and the rest of the Tottenham attack, currently are in. Last weekend was another feather in their cap, as they fired five goals past Newcastle United.
It was actually a pretty disappointing result for those that captained Kane last week. You would expect in a game where Spurs score five times, that a double-digit haul, multiplied by two, would be a no-brainer. But, it turns out Kane’s gameweek was only one point better than Salah’s blank. Salah got three points for playing 60 minutes and banking a clean sheet point while Kane got his appearance points, one assist, but then a point taken away for a yellow card. It is difficult to decide which managers came away more frustrated, the ones who backed a poor Salah showing, which ended with an early substitution, or the ones who backed Kane in a goalfest, only to do one point better.
While is Week 31 return may have been underwhelming, there should be nothing but confidence in backing Kane this week as Tottenham travel to take on Aston Villa. Villa have lost their last three straight, obviously failing to keep a clean sheet in that time, and are running out of reasons to be playing their very best these days. The are smack dab in the middle of the table - safe and sound from getting relegated while also too far removed from contending for a place in Europe next season, so they are one of the first clubs in this campaign to run out of reasons to feel motivated. Couple that with a Spurs side who are now laser-focused on nailing a top four slot, and on paper, we should be expecting a positive result from Tottenham here, which means a high chance of points coming from Kane.
But again, I cannot simply hype a player when I do this column. I always manage to find a way to inject a bit of anxiety about just about everyone - and this point, which is purely based in emotion and not statistics, is being made to keep that tradition going. That point being - Tottenham are heart-breakers. I have seen it too many times. They will under-perform, under-perform, under-perform, until finally, they find their groove and start making a splash in the league, shooting their way up the table. But something inevitably seems to happen at this point in time. Whenever Spurs are going well, so well that a convincing positive result is now an expectation, and there is something significant on the line…that is when Spurs have a reputation for falling flat. This could simply be me bracing myself for disappointment. Last week, I assumed Liverpool were the better side to look to for plenty of goals while Tottenham had that chance to underperform, and the opposite happened. Maybe my Spurs can “go the distance” and keep this run going.
As has been stated, for good reason, for several weeks running now - Heung-Min Son offers a solid option in place of Kane. Hopefully, by this point, you have at least one of these two players in your side. If you are all aboard the Tottenham train and you have Son and no Kane, then you should feel pretty confident about backing the South Korean international this week.
Son has been as good as Kane in recent weeks, averaging a return of eight points per game over his last six. He has been the better of the two for the past two games, but if you do happen to have both Kane and Son in your squad, I think Kane is still the “safer” of the two. Kane has penalties, which is a big difference-maker in comparing the two, and Kane is just such a good passer - whether he is scoring or just adding an single assist, like he did last weekend, Kane simply has too many ways to be involved somehow. However, as the last two weeks have shown, Son is a great, and sometimes more productive, alternative.
Other Names That Interest Me This Week
For me, Salah, Kane and Son represent the elite picks this week, and odds are that you have at least one of them, so you may want to keep things simple and limit your options to that small pool. However, especially with the tricky fixture and recent lack of form for Salah, I do think now is a good time to consider some more “outside-the-box” options and I think there are a few of them this week.
First of all, if you are one of the fortunate few to have Kevin De Bruyne, let me first give you a virtual pat on the back. I carried the Belgian in my side for many a week during the middle of the season while his ownership was low and he provided a great differential. When the time came to sell him, I figured I would regret it, and I have. He has been consistently delivering for weeks and I have no qualms about backing him, despite the fixture against Liverpool. As mentioned already, I do admit that this match could be a tight one, making a captaincy option from either side not an ideal one, but, if there are goals to be had, much like the appeal there is for Salah, City have their own version with De Bruyne.
This one could really pay off. Pretty much all of us were enjoying the Bowen bandwagon and his extended run of amazing form, but as soon as he picked up an injury and missed a little bit of time, we all kind of wrote him off, not really having any plans to buy him back once fit, like we do for so many other elite players. Well, he IS back, and he is right back to doing Bowen things, providing a goal, an assist and maximum bonus in West Ham’s win last weekend.
Probably another reason why Bowen will not get much respect down the stretch this season is the fixture situation. For one, West Ham do not have any double gamweeks to exploit for the remainder or the season, so if you are reserving your precious transfers for players that have a double gameweek, whether immediately or in the future, then you probably are not considering any Hammers. The other strike against them is, following next weekend’s matchup against Burnley, is a tough fixture run in the final weeks of the season, which include matches against Chelsea, Arsenal and Manchester City. Still, if Bowen is back to scoring the way he way before getting injured, then I may need to rip my plans apart and immediately find a place for him in my side. Playing away to Brentford, even though the Bees are doing well right now, I think West Ham find the net a couple of times.
If there was a nominee for the “player I have failed to roster in my squad all season and I don’t know why” award, it would have to go to Saka. He has been a great value midfielder and a consistent provider of points at such a fine price. This could, once again, be a matter of personal bias coming into play - I prefer to not roster an Arsenal player unless I feel they are at a value I simply cannot ignore (which was the case early in the season for Aaron Ramsdale), simply because I do not want to have a reason to root for them. But, it seems, week after week, no one player does more damage to my rank when they score than Saka does. Apparently, everyone ranked anywhere near me has him in their side. Still, it did not feel “essential” to make space for Saka. No one feels essential to me if they are not even good enough for armband consideration, but I am finally starting to come around to the idea this week.
One of the reasons I haven’t picked many Gunners in my captaincy column this week is that I felt the points were spread a little too evenly. One week, Saka would be the guy, the next, Martin Odegaard is the star, the next, it is Alexandre Lacazette. Then it’s Gabriel Martinelli or Emil Smith-Rowe. Honestly, any one of these names could emerge as Arsenal’s top attacking producer in a given match. However, upon further review and contemplation, especially going forward and into next season, I think Saka has hit the stage where he is the undisputed top player from this attack, and therefore, in plus matchups, should get some capatancy consideration.
Playing Brighton at home this week offers Arsenal the perfect medicine to bounce back from their flop performance most recently against Crystal Palace. The Seagulls are in horrific form. Due to some quirks in rescheduling matches, Brighton have had the luxury of playing five of their last six league games at home…and they failed to score a single goal in ALL FIVE GAMES. They have just one goal in their last SIX, and that was a road loss to Newcastle United. They also conceded at least two goals in that stretch, at least, for the first five of those six, finally grinding out a 0-0 result against Norwich this past weekend. One team with something to prove and plenty to play for at home against a side really struggling and not much reason to improve - for me, that is a ripe situation to pick a captain from and Saka, for me, is Arsenal’s best choice.
Right, that about wraps up my thoughts looking around the league this week. It is another huge week in the fight to gain ground in the ranks in these final rounds of the season, with Mo Salah once again the providing the pass/fail test. If you have your mind on a player I haven’t mentioned - I think this is a good week to go with your gut. No one seems a stone-cold lock and going against Salah does not scare me as much as it typically does. So take a chance. There’s a winner in your squad somewhere. Maybe someone you typically do not consider. Maybe this is the week to give him a try.
Good luck, and may your arrows be green