Top FPL Gameweek 1 Captain Picks Based on Analysis & Metrics

After a long summer, we are back with the new season of Premier League and with that, we are also back with the first Captaincy Metrics blog for the 2022/23 FPL Season. We will analyze various key statistics and draw up a fair conclusion to give you the best FPL Gameweek 1 captaincy option for the week.

Last year the metrics had a 30/38 returns record and proved to be helpful for a lot of FPL managers. We hope it continues to be helpful for FPL managers this season as well.

Link to all our 2022/23 Pre Season articles including a transfer tracker of all new signings, all team pre-season friendly updates, team previews, fixture analysis, position-wise analysis, and more. Completely free to access as well!

Link to all Our FPL Team Analysis Series for all 20 PL Teams from our team correspondents

FPL GW1 Captaincy poll ~ Wisdom Of the Crowd

Mo Salah tops the metrics as expected with a whopping 67% of the votes. Salah is always known to haul big in GW1 and this time he plays a promoted team, Fulham in GW1 which makes him the standout option. Harry Kane who scored five goals in the pre-season comes second in the votes with teammate Son coming third with 6% of the votes. The most owned player in FPL ever, Jesus comes fourth in the poll and Man City star striker Haaland is fifth in the captaincy poll for Gameweek 1.

Underlying Numbers of the FPL Gameweek 1 Captain picks

We have taken underlying stats from the last 6 games of the previous season here.

Kane had a strong end to the season and the same is reflected here in the player stats. He had 23 shots, five more than Salah and had 8 big chances with an xG of 4.64 which puts him first for underlying numbers for players.

Jesus(Then at Man City) is second thanks to a strong xG of 4.01 and Son is close behind in third place with an xG of 3.84. Salah is only fourth but do take into consideration that Salah and Liverpool focused on the UCL in the closing gameweeks.

We have used the last six games stats here from the previous season as pre-season data is not available for a lot of games, plus the level of opponents/Intensity is not the same. This was how the metrics was done in GW1 of last season too!

Similarly, we have decided to rank Haaland 5th as we don’t have any data, and adding any of his past season data will skew the metric. This was the same process when Ronaldo moved to Man United in GW4 last season.

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Underlying Numbers of the Candidate’s Teams

Man City(Haaland) are run away winners here based on the stats from last six games of the previous season. Man City mostly rank top in this part of the metrics, last year we didn’t have a lot of Man City captaincy options but this time Haaland should make it often to the metrics and we can expect him to dominate this section of the metrics.

Liverpool are second behind Man City, Spurs are third and Arsenal who had a bit of a slump towards the closing stages of last season come last.

Please note, pre-season data is not available for all teams and the quality of opposition isn’t the same. This meant we used last six games stats of the previous season, same as GW1 captaincy metrics of last season.

Further Read: FPL GW 1 Fixtures & Players to Target | Best Matchups

Fixture Difficulty of the candidate team in FPL GW1

West Ham defence odds are poor which means Haaland and Man City have a 91% odds of scoring one goal and 43% chance of scoring 2.5+ goals in GW1. Salah is close behind with 88% chance of scoring atleast one goal and 34% of scoring 2.5+ goals. Son and Kane are just behind Salah, whereas Jesus is last as Arsenal face Palace which is a tricky fixture.

Further Read: FPL GW1 Preview: Breaking Down FPL Dilemmas for Gameweek 1

Projections Rank of our FPL Gameweek 1 Captain Picks

Son tops the anytime returns projections for the first gameweek of the season whereas Salah tops the projected points. Haaland’s playing the full 90 might be a concern and he comes only fourth for points projection. The tricky Palace game means Jesus is last in the projections section of the metrics.

Further Read: 2022/23 Season: Predicted GW1 Lineups of All 20 PL Teams

Conclusion – Final Rank from our FPL Gameweek 1 Captaincy metric analysis

There’s a three-way tie in which we see three players coming out joint top interms of the metrics. Salah, Son and Kane all are joint top with a CRF of 10, Haaland comes fourth with a CRF of 11 and Jesus is last with a CRF of 17. Considering most of the teams will have one of Son/Kane and Salah it’s going to be a 50/50 call. Few teams would have Salah and Haaland which makes the choice easy.

Coincidentally the GW38 metrics from last season also was a three-way tie and in the end all three hauled so let’s hope it’s the same scenario this time as well.

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Further reads from ALLABOUTFPL ahead of the 2022/23 FPL Season

Link to all our 2022/23 Pre Season articles including transfer tracker of all new signings, all team pre-season friendly updates, team previews, fixture analysis, position-wise analysis, and more. Completely free to access as well!

Link to all our FPL Forwards, FPL Midfielders, FPL Defenders, and FPL Goalkeepers series of blogs including the best 4.0 million defenders, and 4.5 Million midfielders.

Link to all Our FPL Team Analysis Series for all 20 PL Teams from our team correspondents

If you’re new to FPL, here is a link to all our FPLBeginners Guide including FPL Beginner’s Guide- How to play?, Bench boost, Team value, Triple captain, Effective ownership, Price Changes, 2022/23 FPL Chip Strategy, Free Hit, Bonus Points, and more.

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AK is a big Chelsea fan and has been playing FPL since 2012/13. He has finished in the top 5k three times with a Best Overall Rank of 1,140 in the 17/18 season. He’s 250th in the FFS HoF and is ranked 7th in India in All-time FPL Rank on Premier Fantasy Tools.

He believes in the Eye test and uses statistics to verify them. AK takes a keen interest in Football tactics and strategies on the field.

He can be found here: https://twitter.com/AK_FPL1