Erling Haaland costs 15.5m, is owned by 68.1 per cent of all FPL managers and was the most captained player in Gameweek 1. He returned two points. The highest score in the entire league went to Maxim De Cuyper of Brighton, owned by 6.8 per cent, with seventeen.

The gameweek average finished at 50 points and the best manager in the world scored 131. The player leaderboard reads like this: De Cuyper 17, Jack Hinshelwood of Brighton 16, Mendy of Hull City 15, Mamadou Sangaré of Brentford and Ajayi of Hull City on 14 each, then Kayode of Brentford, Cole Palmer of Chelsea and Stach of Leeds on 13, and Gakpo of Liverpool on 12. Of the nine highest scores, two came from clubs normally counted among the elite.

The contrast with what the market actually owns is what makes the opener instructive. The five most owned players are Haaland on 68.1 per cent, João Pedro of Chelsea on 67.0, Bruno Fernandes of Manchester United on 48.9, Szoboszlai of Liverpool on 42.9 and Calafiori of Arsenal on 41.4. Their Gameweek 1 returns were 2, 11, 2, 8 and 9 points. The two most expensive of the five, Haaland at 15.5m and Fernandes at 12.0m, returned two points each.

The ratio between the two is exactly ten to one: 68.1 per cent against 6.8. De Cuyper is also one of only ten players in all of FPL to have changed price since launch. Five have risen, five have fallen, the other 604 have not moved. Three of the five risers, De Cuyper, Sangaré and Kayode, finished among the eight highest scores of the round. When De Cuyper scored his seventeen he cost 4.5m. The rise to 4.6m came afterwards.

It would be easy to dismiss this as noise, and a single gameweek largely is noise. What is not noise is what the two picks require in order to break even. Haaland at 15.5m has to produce more than the same money spread across the rest of the squad would have returned. A defender at 4.5m carries no such requirement. He needs minutes.

The captaincy is the point in FPL where the whole field converges hardest and where the evidence is thinnest. Haaland was both the most owned and the most captained, meaning more managers gave him the armband than any other player in a game of over 9.7 million entrants, and all of them received the same outcome. What decides where you finish is rarely the calls the whole field makes.

Before the Gameweek 2 deadline on Friday evening the same player will in all likelihood be the most captained again, and across thirty-eight gameweeks that is probably the right call. But if you gave Haaland the armband because everyone else did, you have not made a decision. You have avoided making one.

Erling Haaland costs 15.5m, is owned by 68.1 per cent of all FPL managers and was the most captained player in Gameweek 1. He returned two points. The highest score in the entire league went to Maxim De Cuyper of Brighton, owned by 6.8 per cent, with seventeen.

The gameweek average finished at 50 points and the best manager in the world scored 131. The player leaderboard reads like this: De Cuyper 17, Jack Hinshelwood of Brighton 16, Mendy of Hull City 15, Mamadou Sangaré of Brentford and Ajayi of Hull City on 14 each, then Kayode of Brentford, Cole Palmer of Chelsea and Stach of Leeds on 13, and Gakpo of Liverpool on 12. Of the nine highest scores, two came from clubs normally counted among the elite.

The contrast with what the market actually owns is what makes the opener instructive. The five most owned players are Haaland on 68.1 per cent, João Pedro of Chelsea on 67.0, Bruno Fernandes of Manchester United on 48.9, Szoboszlai of Liverpool on 42.9 and Calafiori of Arsenal on 41.4. Their Gameweek 1 returns were 2, 11, 2, 8 and 9 points. The two most expensive of the five, Haaland at 15.5m and Fernandes at 12.0m, returned two points each.

The ratio between the two is exactly ten to one: 68.1 per cent against 6.8. De Cuyper is also one of only ten players in all of FPL to have changed price since launch. Five have risen, five have fallen, the other 604 have not moved. Three of the five risers, De Cuyper, Sangaré and Kayode, finished among the eight highest scores of the round. When De Cuyper scored his seventeen he cost 4.5m. The rise to 4.6m came afterwards.

It would be easy to dismiss this as noise, and a single gameweek largely is noise. What is not noise is what the two picks require in order to break even. Haaland at 15.5m has to produce more than the same money spread across the rest of the squad would have returned. A defender at 4.5m carries no such requirement. He needs minutes.

The captaincy is the point in FPL where the whole field converges hardest and where the evidence is thinnest. Haaland was both the most owned and the most captained, meaning more managers gave him the armband than any other player in a game of over 9.7 million entrants, and all of them received the same outcome. What decides where you finish is rarely the calls the whole field makes.

Before the Gameweek 2 deadline on Friday evening the same player will in all likelihood be the most captained again, and across thirty-eight gameweeks that is probably the right call. But if you gave Haaland the armband because everyone else did, you have not made a decision. You have avoided making one.