It may be a Premier League game week with reduced fixtures, but FPL GW18 is certainly not reduced in our eyes, and as such we offer up our quick Fantasy Premier League analysis and FPL Captain Tips Gameweek 18.
In a shortened version of our weekly FPL preview, this is all about just the premium players we identify each week to be the best captain choices.
This week it should be easy with fewer teams. Or so you would think.
Our Captain’s table below has various stats and sums to make up the tips for who to take, with some of our thoughts thrown in for good measure.
There’s loads of other FPL stats for the person looking for more.
Note these tips were submitted before the FA Cup 3rd round was completed.
For further reading on FPL related content check out the below:
GAME DIFFICULTY RATINGS – our own in house ratings system
FPL Captain Tips Gameweek 18 – CAPTAIN’S TABLE
Here we assemble the finest stats we can think of to get the best picture of who should wear the armband for your team.
It is a mix of current FPL form, historical goal scoring and assist form v opponents, relative FPL performance per their cost and the difficulty of their upcoming game designed by our in house difficulty ratings system.
Each category is given a weighting, and points assigned relative to that high point. Each category score is totaled for he final score.
The final score is out of 100, with that high mark being a rare occurrence of aligning suns, moons and planets of FPL.
THE VERDICT
Originally it was Son who topped our Captain’s table, but the changing of their fixture to play Fulham has seen Harry Kane take over at the top, due to his quality scoring record v Fulham.
Son has scored twice as many goals away than at home this season, and Fulham have been reasonably tight away – conceding seven goals in the last six games which includes a trip to Man City. So despite the quality am looking elsewhere for captain.
Harry Kane is the assist king at the moment, but has the best H2H scoring record for this week’s selection. It’s 50-50 for goals scored for Kane Home/Away, and all of his goals have come against teams lower than the top six. With his scoring record v Fulham and assists we make him the better pick of the two Spurs captain choices.
Bruno Fernandes is second on the captain’s table and is a good bet for FPL Captain for GW 18. Man Utd have been good on the road this season – they have 19pts from seven away games – best points per game for the EPL this season. Burnley aren’t an easy team to play at home though. You could take Marcus Rashford and other Man Utd players but we say it’s Bruno or bust.
Manchester City players Raheem Sterling and Kevin de Bruyne feature in our Captain’s Table and they are certainly well worth consideration. Especially given how good Man City looked in the League Cup last week against Chelsea. Manchester City have never lost to Brighton at home, and since Brighton rejoined the top flight Man City have won all three games at home by a margin of 9-1.
A left field option is Callum Wilson who be up front for Newcastle against a Sheffield United side that is struggling badly. Also worth noting for the pro-Wilson argument is that Newcastle’s goals scored v conceded record v bottom six sides in five games this season is 10-3 while the record elsewhere is 11-23. Even more relevant is that Wilson has scored five goals and provided two assists in those five games.
The final decision: Kevin de Bruyne or Callum Wilson
FPL Captain Tips Gameweek 18 – MAGNIFICENT SEVEN-ISH
From the above Captain’s table, we offer up some more stats on the top seven captain choices for Gameweek 18.
FPL Captain Tips Gameweek 18 – QUICK STATS
Here is the best of the key current stats from the Premier League so far.
OVERALL QUICK LOOK
SHOTS / SHOTS ON TARGET
KEY PASSES
Interesting to note just how few key passes Harry Kane has performed this season to the number of assists.
CHANCES
TOUCHES
EXPECTED GOALS
