Palmer’s penalty and set-piece share give him the higher floor; Haaland the higher ceiling against a leaky back line. For GW6 the index leans Palmer by a whisker — 24 projected to 22 — almost entirely on fixture certainty.
If your mini-league rivals are all on Haaland, Palmer becomes a low-risk differential captain: similar expected return, but a points swing in your favour the week City are kept quiet.
Either is defensible. The mistake is captaining the third name on your sheet to be clever — the ceiling gap is real.