Kane and Son turn the screw on dominating effective top 10k ownership

Harry Kane (£10.9m) continues to turn the screw on his effective ownership among the top 10,000 Fantasy Premier League managers.

Following what looked like a close-call in the Gameweek 7 captaincy debate, the latest statistics from the top-level managers told a completely different story.

Mohamed Salah (£12.4m) was the winner of the latest Fantasy Football Scout captain poll for the second week in a row, his 28.9% share of the vote just 4.1 percentage points ahead of Kane’s backing.

However, just as we saw last week, there is considerably more love for the Spurs man among the top 10k.

As you can see from the pie chart above, he has made a mockery of the Fantasy Football Scout captain poll at this level, by sweeping up 58% support for the armband at this level for Gameweek 7. That is an increase of 8.4 percentage points on last round.

19.3% went for Son Heung-min (£9.5m), which means that, even though he won our captain poll, just 15.9% of top 10k managers backed Salah for the armband. Perhaps West Ham’s recent improvements in defence was a key reason for the Egyptian’s lower than expected performance in this area.

There is a much more even spread for the captaincy at an overall level, but the Spurs assets still came out on top ahead of their hosting of Brighton.

24.6% have chosen Kane as heir skipper, 21.5% went with Son and a similar portion that we saw in the top 10k trusted Salah.

With Spurs proving more and more popular among the top 10k, the effective ownership figures for Kane and Son are approaching frightening levels.

The former boasts 146.7% ownership at this level for Gameweek 7, with Son the second-highest on 110.1%.

While West Ham’s defence has provided stern tests for their opponents in recent weeks, Salah backers will probably be pleased to see him mostly overlooked. His 81.6% effective ownership is certainly enough to cause waves if he outscores the Spurs pair.

Even after just one match, Gameweek 7 has not been kind on the defensive template among the top 10k managers.

Following a seven-point score in Gameweek 6, Romain Saïss (£5.3m) came into the latest round of fixtures as the top-scoring defender. Unsurprisingly, his ownership at this level increased accordingly, rising from the fourth-most to most-owned between the two deadlines.

However, much to the chagrin of the 35.9% of top 10k managers in possession of the Moroccan, he dropped to the bench for the Friday night meeting with Crystal Palace, losing his place to goal-scorer Rayan Aït-Nouri (£5.0m).

That event was compounded by the fact that the top 10k’s third-most fashionable defender Tyrick Mitchell (£4.2m), owned by 32.4% missed the match completely, following a knock he picked up in training.

After Liverpool failed to keep a clean sheet at home to Sheffield United last time out, the stock of their defenders continues to fall.

Trent Alexander-Arnold (£7.4m) slips to 24.9% ownership inside the top 10k, while Andrew Robertson (£7.1m) drops out of the top-five in this position.

Ben Chilwell (£5.8m) appears the most popular replacement for those leaving Liverpool defenders behind, the Chelsea left-back a new entry into this template at 26.4% top 10k ownership.

We have already seen that Son, Kane and Salah are fast-becoming must-owns in the top 10k, based on their ownership at this level, but Wilfried Zaha (£7.3m) is challenging the boundaries of such a status.

482,570 Fantasy managers signed the Crystal Palace man for Gameweek 7, more than any other midfielder. That means 50.3% of the top 10k now own him, handing him the fourth-highest figure in terms of effective ownership.

However, it was a poor start to such commanding ownership levels as Zaha blanked and picked up a yellow card against Wolves.

The Eagles face Leeds (home), Burnley (away), Newcastle (home) and West Bromwich Albion (away) between now and Gameweek 11 though.

Patrick Bamford‘s (£5.9m) Gameweek 6 hat-trick has also re-shaped the forwards’ template in the upper echelons.

Kane, Dominic Calvert-Lewin (£7.7m) and Callum Wilson (£6.5m) were the top-three most-popular forwards last time out, with the latter holding onto just 23.4% ownership.

Fast-forward to Gameweek 7 and Bamford has smashed his way into that trio, sat in 42.5% of top 10k squads.

Finally, a look at the chip usage demonstrates the credentials of the top 10k even more.

This group can no longer be referred to a selection of managers who wasted their chips early or rode their luck when doing so.

As you can see 44.1% of them are still yet to even deploy the Wildcard, let alone the Triple Captain, Free Hit or Bench Boost.

37.3% have used one chip, while no more than 13.3% are inside the top 10k on the back of using more than one.

94.4% of top 10k managers went chipless into Gameweek 7.

The Triple Captain was the most popular, but only 2% used it, mostly on Kane.

1.7% opted to use the Wildcard.