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            <p>Fantasy Football Hub's resident Fantasy Premier League (FPL) captaincy expert <a href="https://twitter.com/ChrisTanFPL">Chris Tan</a> takes a close look at the key fixtures and best FPL captain options for Gameweek 1.</p>
<p>The first captaincy pick of the season is always a tricky one. We have no form to take into account and who the whipping boys are is unclear. All we have is some historic data and assumptions, so we need to rely on our fundamentals.</p>
<p>If you want to start well and are not sure who to go for, then this article will clarify matters. Alternatively, if you already have someone in mind then this could provide that confirmation bias you’re looking for.</p>
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<h2><strong>Best FPL captain for Gameweek 1: Captaincy Matrix</strong></h2>
<p>At this stage we’re still finalising our squads. It’s important to keep captaincy in your mind when drafting, as it represents a massive percentage of your overall score.</p>
<p>One way of doing this is projecting the potential captaincy options for the upcoming weeks to ensure you have reasonable coverage.</p>
<p>To do this I have used the Hub's <a href="https://www.fantasyfootballhub.co.uk/predictions" target="_blank" rel="noopener">points prediction tool</a> - and both Haaland and Salah have excellent potential over the first six weeks.</p>
<div id="attachment_65950" style="width: 560px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-65950" class="size-full wp-image-65950" src="https://cms.fantasyfootballhub.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/FPL-Gameweek-1-Best-Captain-captaincy-matrix.png" alt="" width="550" height="426" /></p>
<p id="caption-attachment-65950" class="wp-caption-text">Captaincy candidate predicted points, with the leaders for each week highlighted green</p>
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<h2><strong>Best FPL captain for Gameweek 1: The candidates</strong></h2>
<p>These are the main candidates:</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Mohamed Salah (£12.5m) </strong>v Ipswich (A)</li>
<li><strong>Alexander Isak (£8.5m)</strong> v Southampton (H)</li>
<li><strong>Erling Haaland (£15.0m)</strong> v Chelsea (A)</li>
<li><strong>Bukayo Saka (£10.0m)</strong> v Wolves (H)</li>
<li><strong>Son Heung-min (£10.0m)</strong> v Leicester (A)</li>
</ul>
<p>There are reasonable alternatives on the same team as some of the above and some of the team analysis below is still applicable to them.</p>
<h2 style="text-align: left;">Best FPL captain for Gameweek 1: The fixtures</h2>
<div id="attachment_65951" style="width: 528px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-65951" class="size-full wp-image-65951" src="https://cms.fantasyfootballhub.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/FPL-Gameweek-1-Best-Captain-fixtures.png" alt="" width="518" height="931" /></p>
<p id="caption-attachment-65951" class="wp-caption-text">FPL Gameweek 1 fixtures</p>
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<h2 style="text-align: left;">Best FPL captain for Gameweek 1: Twitter poll</h2>
<p>Isak led my Twitter poll, with Salah in second place.</p>
<div id="attachment_65963" style="width: 612px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-65963" class="size-full wp-image-65963" src="https://cms.fantasyfootballhub.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/FPL-Gameweek-1-Best-Captain-twitter-poll.png" alt="" width="602" height="306" /></p>
<p id="caption-attachment-65963" class="wp-caption-text">Twitter poll</p>
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<h2 style="text-align: left;">Best FPL captain for Gameweek 1: Players' records</h2>
<p>Here are some notable records for our captaincy candidates, plus some others to note:</p>
<p><strong>Son</strong> - Loves playing against Leicester but the majority of his hauls have come at home.</p>
<p><strong>Haaland</strong> - Picked up three attacking returns in his last away game against Chelsea, albeit under a different manager</p>
<p><strong>Isak </strong>- Picked up an assist against Southampton the last time he faced them at home.</p>
<p><strong>Odegaard </strong>- Scored in both fixtures against Wolves last season and braced away the season prior.</p>
<p><strong>Fernandes</strong> - Blanked the home game last season but scored at home the season before and seems to have a one-in-two record against Fulham.</p>
<p><strong>Saka</strong> - Scored in the last two home games against Wolves.</p>
<div id="attachment_65954" style="width: 847px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-65954" class="size-full wp-image-65954" src="https://cms.fantasyfootballhub.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/FPL-Gameweek-1-Best-Captain-past-performance.png" alt="" width="837" height="569" /></p>
<p id="caption-attachment-65954" class="wp-caption-text">Past performances</p>
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<h2 style="text-align: left;">Best FPL captain for Gameweek 1: Members' stats breakdown</h2>
<p>The stats are filtered to show 'per start' for the individual players and 'by appearance' for the teams for the previous six gameweeks. These were pulled before Wednesday's games.</p>
<p>See the latest stats on the Hub's <a href="https://www.fantasyfootballhub.co.uk/opta">Opta page</a>.</p>
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