Haaland or Saka for the armband

Flip 1 · CaptainHaaland or Saka

The dilemma

Captain Haaland (Man City, £15.6m), the most-owned player in the game, in the hardest fixture of his month, or Saka (Arsenal, £9.6m), who came back from the break in form and had the kinder fixture. It was the one decision that could swing our whole gameweek either way.

The case for Haaland

• Five goals in five games, 39 points and 7.8 points per game, and he's on penalties.
• 0.99 expected goal involvements (xGI) per 90 minutes, the best of anyone in our team.
• He's in 74.3% of teams. If he scores twice at Anfield, everyone who captained elsewhere drops a long way, quickly.
• Fitness is no longer a worry. Norway took him off after 65 minutes against Portugal, which was reported as fatigue rather than an injury, and Maresca said on Friday that he's "ready for Anfield".

The case for Saka

• Leeds at home, an easier game on paper than Haaland's trip to Anfield.
• Arsenal have scored 13 goals in their last three games against Leeds, more than four a match. That's a team record rather than a Saka stat, but it bodes well for whoever's at the heart of their attack.
• Three goals in five games, 32 points, 0.91 xGI per 90 and Arsenal's penalties.
• He scored twice for England over the break and came home without a flag, which very few premium players can say this week.
• With Havertz and Tzolis both injured, even more of Arsenal's attack runs through him.
• Only 15.7% of managers own him, so a big score as captain gains ground on most of the game.

Why it was genuinely 50/50

The two projection models we checked couldn't agree. Fantasy Football Hub had Haaland on 5.5 points and Saka on 5.4. Solio had it the other way round: Saka 5.85, Haaland 5.49. The average comes out at 5.6 for Saka and 5.5 for Haaland, a tenth of a point apart. Haaland has the better underlying numbers and the safety of ownership; Saka has the better fixture and plays at home. And Saka kicked off first, at 12:30 on Saturday. Some managers dread an early-kickoff captain; we preferred to think of it as getting the nerves over with before lunch.

The flip

What happened

Arsenal beat Leeds 2–1, but the goals came from Calafiori and Bruno Guimarães. Saka played the full 90 minutes without a goal or an assist: 2 points, 4 with the armband. A day later City won 3–0 at Anfield and Haaland scored one of them, 6 points in 79 minutes. With Haaland as captain, the pair would have given us 14 points instead of 10.