04 Dec, 2024

Game Week 15: FPL Bois’ Captaincy Thread

Keep your foot on the pedal as we enter the third Gameweek in eight days! The green arrows have been quick and big, and here we present three candidates for your Gameweek 15 FPL Captain that can help carry forward this momentum:

Saka – FUL (A)

After a rough patch, Arsenal seem to have finally jumped back on the horse with two dominating wins in the PL against Nottingham and West Ham and against Sporting in the UCL. The key figure in attack in these games was starboy Bukayo Saka who is now delivering the returns to support his impressive underlying numbers.

Saka has returned 31 FPL points in the last 2 games (at the time of writing) through 2 goals and 4 assists! He now ranks 1st for assists, 1st for xA, 1st for Big Chances Created, 3rd for Penalty Area Touches, and 14th for goals scored! These performances have led Arsenal to rank 6th for xG and 4th for Big Chances Created making them a potent attack against a Fulham side who seem to have mistakes in them as they’ve conceded 11 goals at home from an xGC of just 6.5!

The attacking zones favor Saka too as out of the 113 chances that Fulham have conceded in 13 games, 39 have come from their left. Saka showed good signs against Fulham last season too and scored in both fixtures but couldn’t get Arsenal over the line in either. He will be looking to change that this time around. Bukayo makes a very strong case to wear the armband this week and lead your team from the front!

Salah – EVE (A)

The Mo Salah train does not seem to be slowing down anytime soon as he once again features on the shortlist, and with good reason! The Merseyside derby has seen some solid performances from the king as he holds a record of 7 goals and 1 assist in 11 games, and now would be looking to improve this by carrying forward the momentum of his sublime form.

Although he may have missed a few chances in the recent games that we’d expect him to bury, his returns give us no reason to complain with an astounding 71 points from the last 6 (at the time of writing). He now ranks 2nd for goals, 2nd for xG, 4th for nPxG, 2nd for assists, 11th for xA, 9th for Big Chances Created, and 1st for Penalty Area Touches! Royalty.

Liverpool are undoubtedly the best attack in the league ranking 1st for both xG and Big Chances Created, and now will be against local rivals who are ranked 14th for xGC at home and have conceded 135 chances in 13 games of which the most (46) have come from their left hand side. That all makes Salah a mighty strong pick for captaincy for another week!

Watkins – SOU (H)

Long time, no see!? Ollie is back in the shortlist after a long long hiatus as he now takes on a porous Southampton defence at home who rank 20th for xGC and have conceded 181 chances in 13 games (of which 60 are through the middle). That’s ~14 chances per game! The perfect fixture for Aston Villa to gain some form and make a statement after not having registered a win since the last week of October!

Watkins has been under the radar but has registered some promising numbers as he ranks 9th for goals scored, 3rd for xG and 2nd for nPxG! He’s also shown he’s more than capable to deliver with his creativity as he ranked 1st for assists last season. As a team, Aston Villa rank 3rd for Big Chances Created and 8th for xG and Unai’s men have scored 2+ goals each time this season when facing a team in the bottom 5 for xGC.

The Villa talisman has 3 goals in 6 games against Southampton and with them looking as shaky as they’ve been, this tally looks set to rise (may be even exponentially) this Gameweek, making him a strong candidate for captaincy. Watkins could be the differential you need as we head into the holiday season!

Thank you for reading our article! Who do you pick to sit in the driver’s seat to guide you to more green arrows as we accelerate through the season?

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