{"id":347508,"date":"2025-12-14T02:57:07","date_gmt":"2025-12-14T02:57:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/347508\/"},"modified":"2025-12-14T02:57:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-14T02:57:07","slug":"saka-delivers-with-biggest-fpl-captaincy-backing-in-nearly-two-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/347508\/","title":{"rendered":"Saka delivers with biggest FPL captaincy backing in nearly two years"},"content":{"rendered":"

Arsenal star produces two assists after being handed the armband by over one million managers against Wolves<\/p>\n

Bukayo Saka (\u00a310.2m) rewarded more than one million managers in Fantasy Premier League<\/a> who picked him as their captain for Gameweek 16, with the Arsenal<\/a> star getting the assists for both of his side’s goals in their 2-1 win over Wolverhampton Wanderers<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It was Saka’s biggest captaincy backing for 68 Gameweeks, since Arsenal beat Crystal Palace 5-0<\/a> in Gameweek 21 of the 2023\/24 season, and three extra bonus points took his tally against Wolves to 11 points, or 22 with the captain’s armband.<\/p>\n

The England international created a match-high four chances and had an Expected Goal Involvement (xGI) of 0.43.<\/p>\n

GW16 most-captained players<\/p>\n

Player
\nCaptained by
\nPts<\/p>\n

Haaland
\n5,642,190
\n–<\/p>\n

Saka
\n1,094,344
\n11<\/p>\n

Salah
\n853,758
\n7<\/p>\n

Erling Haaland (\u00a315.0m) remains the most-popular captain in Gameweek 16, despite 1.7m fewer managers handing him the armband than in Gameweek 15.<\/p>\n

On Sunday, Manchester City travel to Crystal Palace<\/a>, an opponent Haaland has done very well against in the past. The Norwegian boasts a flawless record against Oliver Glasner’s side, having scored in each of his previous four Premier League meetings with them, averaging 9.5 points per match.<\/p>\n

The third most-popular captain, Mohamed Salah (\u00a314.0m), supplied an assist after coming on as a first-half substitute in Liverpool’s 2-0 win over Brighton & Hove Albion<\/a>, his first attacking return since Gameweek 10.<\/p>\n

He now departs for the Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) and looks set to miss at least two Gameweeks, depending on Egypt’s progress in the tournament.<\/p>\n

More reaction from Gameweek 16<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Arsenal star produces two assists after being handed the armband by over one million managers against Wolves Bukayo…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":347509,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[69],"tags":[403,99,1959],"class_list":{"0":"post-347508","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-soccer","8":"tag-soccer","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-text"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/347508","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=347508"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/347508\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/347509"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=347508"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=347508"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=347508"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}