Gameweek 23’s second-most-popular captaincy option is in action this afternoon as Burnley entertain Leicester City.
Kick-off at Turf Moor is at 14:00 GMT.
Jamie Vardy (£10.1m) was handed the armband by over 1.3 million Fantasy Premier League managers for this weekend’s set of fixtures, with 32.12% of the top 10,000 doing likewise.
Only Kevin De Bruyne (£10.7m), who blanked yesterday, was a more popular captaincy candidate in this current Gameweek.
Vardy starts this afternoon and is aiming to maintain his excellent run of form against the also-rans of the Premier League: the Leicester striker has (when fit) yet to blank in a fixture against a side ranked ninth or below.
He has amassed 60 FPL points in his last five away appearances, too.
While well-owned FPL options such as Vardy, James Maddison (£7.7m), Caglar Soyuncu (£5.1m) and Ricardo Pereira (£6.4m) all start, there is no place in the visitors’ starting XI for Ben Chilwell (£5.7m).
Still owned by 10.4% of Fantasy bosses, the out-of-form Leicester left-back isn’t even in Brendan Rodgers’ matchday squad – the reason for which is still to be officially confirmed but reportedly because he hasn’t completed a full week of training.
Chilwell is replaced by Christian Fuchs (£4.3m) in defence, while Nampalys Mendy (£4.3m) is in for Hamza Choudhury (£4.3m) in the middle of the park.
Youri Tielemans (£6.3m) is once again among the substitutes.
Sean Dyche has also made two changes to his Burnley side.
Jay Rodriguez (£5.7m) has shaken off an illness to return to the hosts’ line-up, while Phil Bardsley (£4.3m) is back in the team at right-back.
Aaron Lennon (£4.6m) and Matthew Lowton (£4.2m) are the men to make way.
Ashley Barnes (£6.2m) is missing from the Clarets’ squad, of course, as he recovers from hernia surgery.
Only two members of the Burnley starting XI are owned by more than 1% of FPL bosses: Nick Pope (£4.6m) and James Tarkowski (£5.1m).
Pope has shipped 18 goals in six fixtures against the current top five of the Premier League and has yet to keep a clean sheet in any of those matches.
Burnley XI: Pope, Bardsley, Tarkowski, Mee, Taylor, Hendrick, Cork, Westwood, McNeil, Wood, Rodriguez.
Leicester City XI: Schmeichel, Fuchs, Söyüncü, Evans, Pereira, Mendy, Praet, Barnes, Maddison, Perez, Vardy.
4 years, 8 months ago
Thinking thought my season in this half-time and coming to the conclusion it’s the 50/50 decisions which feel like they make or break your season:
a) two weeks ago spent lots of time, thought and stats revewing Webster vs Holgate. Obviously went the former and down 12 points.
b) again spent lots of time and effort weighing up Tomori vs Söyüncü early in the season, went Tomori and haven’t had Leicester defense all season. Big factor.
What this game does to us!