This article is part of our The Armband series.
As transfer talk continues, a new Premier League season starts Friday with Arsenal hosting Leicester. The offseason was exciting per usual with fees hitting astronomical amounts, as seen in Kyle Walker's £50 million switch to Manchester City. But for now, not many big names have left outside of Zlatan Ibrahimovic, who may actually return later this season. More players were moved within the league (Wayne Rooney, Romelu Lukaku), though the status of Alexis Sanchez and Philippe Coutinho is yet to be determined. At the least, no one has to worry about using Adnan Januzaj anymore as he made his way to Spain.
With Alexis and Eden Hazard likely out for the first gameweek, there aren't many ways to go for your first captain. There are a couple players who everyone considers and then the rest will be made up of fantasy owners looking for an early differential.
The easiest place to look is Lukaku, who will be making his league debut for the Red Devils. The Belgian will try and match the 25 goals he scored last season, and while it won't be easy with a new team, better players around him will make some argue against that. As a selling point, he scored four goals in preseason and has already moved seamlessly into the lineup.
Outside of Lukaku, the next best option is up for debate, but Harry Kane fits that role as the most expensive player (£12.5m) in the Premier League's official fantasy game. Kane has scored more than 20 goals in each of the last three seasons and no one will doubt him from doing so again. The scoring form he found at the end of last seasons (eight goals in final three matches) continued in the offseason with club and country. He scored thrice in two appearances with England in June and most recently tallied against Juventus in a friendly.
The question is whether you trust him on the road against recently promoted Newcastle. His numbers were similar at home and away last year (helped by seven away goals in the final two matches), but more importantly, he scored more than one goal per 90 minutes, which was far better than anyone else who was a regular starter. If you didn't spend money on Kane, Christian Eriksen and Dele Alli are in the debate, as well.
Others to consider would be Kevin De Bruyne, Sergio Aguero or Gabriel Jesus. At Brighton has the makings of an early beat down, so any of those players would be a reasonable option. For now, I'll put my money on Aguero, though Jesus was more efficient in less time last season. With the way Man City dominated in their last few preseason matches, three goals or more could be on the table.
Chelsea and Everton are the other two sides to consider for your captain, though neither will be easy to trust. Alvaro Morata is slated to start, but only a week ago manager Antonio Conte didn't think he was ready for the starting XI in the Community Shield against Arsenal. I'd be more inclined to back Marcos Alonso or Cesar Azpilicueta for the armband, as a clean sheet is a good bet for the Blues. Burnley scored 13 away games last campaign and their biggest addition to the attacking force was Jonathan Walters.
As for the Toffees, they don't have any hands-down top option with Lukaku gone, so there's not much to do with them unless you think Rooney will be young again or Sandro Ramirez will come in firing. The same goes for Alexandre Lacazette for Arsenal because it still rings true that you can't trust any Gunner outside of Alexis.
Going against the grain even more would be Christian Benteke at home against Huddersfield, anyone on Liverpool at Watford or Manolo Gabbiadini against Swansea. Again, I'm not keen on stepping outside of the box in the early season, so let's just escape the first week without completely flubbing, shall we?
