Last updated on October 25th, 2021
Mohamed Salah the Egyptian King has continued his rich form since the start of the EPL season 2021/2022. After only 9 game-weeks, he has registered 10 goals and 6 assists. He ranks #1 amongst all FPL players thus far with a whopping 107 points, leading the way correspondingly in the FPL ICT Index.
The illustration above shows how unique of a season Mo is having, nearly doubling his tally when compared to the previous 4 seasons.
In today’s fixture against the mighty Manchester United, Salah had 59 touches, 6 in the opposition box, 2 chances created, he registered an assist, had 7 shots, 4 of which were on target and scored a hat-trick. One can argue that he is in the best form of his life and the statistics don’t lie.
Using my FPL team as an example DAGGA FC and the Fantasy Premier League Captain Picks Analyzer courtesy @premierFPLTools, I would have attained 194 points from my captain picks over the nine gameweeks in FPL.
If I would have perma-captained Salah that would have given me 20 additional points, which in terms of overall rank (OR), I would be sitting comfortably in the top 50K when compared to my OR of 130K. The significance is even greater when you take into consideration an OR of 200K (608 pts) and an OR of 500K (585 pts), a difference of 23 points, it shows how precious every point is in FPL, specifically at this relatively early stage of the season.
Mo Salah will leave for the AFCON and will most definitely miss gameweeks 20-23. The table below shows the fixtures for gameweeks 10-19 which indeed favour the perma-captaining of Salah in terms of form and fixtures.
If you want to play it safe, the perma-captaining of Salah might be the right choice for you, although one can argue it might be boring and will take the fun out of the game.
When it comes to Salah, judging from what we have seen this season, there is also the psychological pressure of Expected Ownership, (EO) – “EO = percentage of managers who started the player + percentage captained + percentage triple captained. This summed percentage gives you an indication of the effect this player has on the average. If a player has an EO of 116%, it means every point he scores raises the average by 1.16 points,” (@ffscout_az).
If you’re more of a maverick player then attacking each fixture as it comes might be the right choice for you. Each style has its own merit, but one can agree on the case that the perma-captaining of Salah is a viable option.
In conclusion, when you are tinkering over your next captain selection, to play it safe and put EO fears to rest the perma-captaining of Salah may be the way to go, certainly for the next 10 gameweeks!
About the Author: Javed hails from the twin-island Republic of Trinidad & Tobago. He is a Registered Engineer and Project Management Professional. A fantasy football enthusiast and Chelsea FC fan, with notable ORs of 16k, 16k and 8k in the last 5 seasons. In his spare time, he contributes for @PremeirFPLTools and @FPLHints Magazine, @FPLDaggaFC by Twitter handle his DMs are always open to give advice and converse with the FPL Community.
He recently started a Twitter Spaces Event called the #FPLDIALOGUE featuring FPL Legends and FPL Content Creators. He is one of the up-and-coming members of the FPL Community. Be sure to follow Javed @FPLDaggaFC on Twitter.
