FF247 #UCLFantasy Captain Picks Matchday 4
Welcome back to another of The Stats Zone’s guest pieces here on FF247. This time we’re looking at the main captain candidates for #UCLFantasy matchday 4. If you’re familiar with the Champions League fantasy game, then you’ll know by now that one of the key strategic differences to FPL is the ability to swap the armband between Tuesday and Wednesday’s matches, giving you a second bite at the cherry in case your original choice didn’t quite do the business.
And so, here’s our lowdown of the main captaincy options for this coming week. We’ve got three selections for Tuesday’s matches, and three for Wednesday’s…
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TUESDAY
Edinson Cavani — PSG — Forward — £11.1m — Anderlecht (H)
Paris Saint-Germain were extremely comfortable winners over Anderlecht in the reverse fixture at the Constant Vanden Stock Stadium, with all three of their star strikers on the scoresheet, and few would bet against the trio repeating the trick on Tuesday night (because it’s Halloween, get it?).
So then, it’s a case of choosing between Neymar, Mbappé, and Cavani. The Brazilian sat out his side’s 3-0 victory over Nice on Friday night through suspension and may not be quite up to speed, while the young Frenchman has scored the fewest of the three so far this season. Cavani, therefore, who has scored 15 goals in 14 matches in all competitions so far this season, seems like the shrewdest selection.
Angel Correa — Atlético Madrid — Midfielder — £7.4m — Qarabag (H)
Azeri UCL debutants Qarabag may well have kept Atlético at bay in a 0-0 draw in Baku a fortnight ago, but they’re a much less foreboding opponent when forced to travel away from home, as evidenced by their 6-0 loss to Chelsea in the first game of this year’s group stage.
It would be tempting, therefore, to give the armband to Antoine Griezmann in advance of this game at the Wanda Metropolitano, but the Frenchman has scored only 2 goals so far this season in what has been a disappointing start to 2017/18.
His Argentinian teammate Angel Correa, meanwhile, has scored 4 in La Liga, including his side’s goal in the 1-1 draw with Villarreal on Saturday. He’s benefitted from regular appearances up-front this year, but is listed as a midfielder in the #UCLFantasy game. A differential for sure, but worthy of consideration if you’re chasing.
Lionel Messi — Barcelona — Forward — £12.1m — Olympiakos (A)
Speaking of Argentinians, why not just make the greatest player of all-time your captain?
Lionel Messi scored his 100th goal in European competition with a sumptuous free-kick against Olympiakos at the Nou Camp two weeks ago, and has already racked up 16 goals in the 15 matches he’s played since the beginning of the season, including three strikes in the Champions League.
Olympiakos, meanwhile, have had a poor start this term, and sit in 4th place in the Greek Super League after a chastening 1-0 defeat against rivals Panathinaikos at the weekend. Surely Leo will punish them again on Tuesday?
WEDNESDAY
Mohamed Salah — Liverpool — Forward — £9.6m — Maribor (H)
He may well have missed a penalty against Huddersfield on Saturday afternoon, but Mohamed Salah’s goalscoring record so far this season is seriously impressive. He’s notched 9 for Liverpool since his summer arrival, as well as scoring from the spot deep into injury-time against Congo to send Egypt to their first World Cup since 1990.
Roberto Firmino and Phillippe Coutinho scored good points in the Reds’ 0-7 drubbing of Maribor last time out too, but Salah was voted the fans’ best player on both matchday 1 and matchday 3, and his electric pace means he should find himself with plenty of chances to score against the Slovenians again at Anfield on Wednesday.
Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang — Borussia Dortmund — Forward — £11m — APOEL (H)
Peter Bosz’s Borussia Dortmund may well have taken advantage of the turmoil surrounding Bayern Munich’s poor start to the season under Carlo Ancelotti and made headway at the top of the Bundesliga standings, but their form has come a cropper recently and now they’re back in 2nd place having won only 1 of their last 5 matches in all competitions.
One of those failures saw them draw 1-1 in Cyprus against lowly APOEL on matchday 3, with goalkeeper Roman Burki‘s error meaning they face a tough ask to qualify for the knockout stages ahead of either Real Madrid or Tottenham Hotspur.
So, there’s no time like the present to make a statement of intent, and a thumping victory would certainly do so. If BVB can rack up a few goals on Wednesday night, it’s likely to be Gabonese striker Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, who has scored 15 in 15 games this season, that has a hand in setting them on their way.
Cristiano Ronaldo — Real Madrid — Forward — £12.1m — Tottenham (A)
You didn’t think we were going to exclude the all-time Champions League top scorer, did you?
The Portuguese superstar, who has scored something near 7 million career goals (rough estimate), has started the season in mediocre form domestically, netting just once in La Liga so far, but as has been the case in recent seasons, Ronaldo has saved his best form for Europe.
With five Champions League strikes to his name already, he’ll be hungry to add to that on the large Wembley pitch against a Spurs side still smarting from their Saturday lunchtime defeat to Manchester United.
Thanks for reading FF247 #UCLFantasy Captain Picks Matchday 4
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Great stuff mastermind – I’m one of those that have Neymar already so I’ll be capping him this evening. It’s between him and Gelson Martins, though that one may or not be a little heart-oriented more than a rational choice! Anyway, I still had Mane wandering around for I let the deadline pass last gw so shipped him for that man Daniel Sturridge!!! Also got this Dortmund defender Zagadou. He’s 3.9 and apparently a regular start in their last matches. It was for Christensen so not much in it. Thanks for your inputs and good luck to absolutely everyone. Yes, Raz, including you!
Cheers mate.
I switched from Messi to Neymar for capo last minute. Here’s hoping!
Question is, will you be keeping it on Neymar’s 9 pts or will you switch it and to whom? I have Ronaldo…
Hey DMC — Hope you’re doing well, mate… I’d keep it on Neymar if I had him. Had it on Messi so will be switching to Pool (hoping for another Pool goal fest tomorrow)… Interesting games today with Chelski losing and Barca held goalless. And poor Atleti.
Hi Sanchez – Barca not winning was actualy bad for my team, especially as we were so close to winning it vs Juve! Yeah I’ll keeping it on Neymar. A hattrick from Ronaldo could hurt but but that seems unlikely actualy. Don’t forget it’s an early kick of today if you want to do any changes. Cheers
Don’t forget the there’s a 5pm game tomorrow night so do your changes early doors.
Yeah it’s strange because the Turkish teams never used to kick off early.
Do my moves first thing. Thanks man.
Hey Init — how’d it go today? Need a Pool goal fest tomorrow to salvage my team. Messi, blank. Cavani, blank. Savic, -1 (and can’t sub out!)…
Had Neymar, the PSG keeper and the same with Savic. Rest were 2 pointers so I have 8 playing tonight.
I have Gelson who bagged in a much welcomed assist! The Alonso+Courtois duo didn’t quite work though…
I’ll be keeping Neymar myself. I’ve no Ronaldo this time so my only real alternatives would be Salah or Sterling. They could both outscore him but not convinced of gametime.
Sticking it on Salah myself after a Messi blank. He’ll almost certainly start but yeah get a couple up and he’ll also be one of the first off you’d imagine.
Brahimi the only other realistic choice though I suppose?
Yeah Salah is the standout option and if I’d have gone Messi last night I’d certainly be choosing him. My slight concern is that Maribor were beaten so easily two weeks ago that Klopp might be tempted to rest some of his leading protagonists, but we shall see.
Damn early KO putting paid to line-up sneak peaks!
Done Messi to Salah as well Init.
Love that Talisca pick. He’s been brilliant so far.
Yeah great. He’s been benched!
Sorry for the jinx!
Damn, I saw Kurzawa scored a hatty, I assumed I had him, but apparently I sold him with the WC played two weeks ago. To be fair I probably didn’t deserve to have him considering how negligent I have been with making changes during GWs and forgetting to make transfers other weeks.
24 points from him. Unreal to have a defender scoring a hat-trick! The top guy went and captained him of course.
I’ve been pretty luck with starters tonight!
All line-ups are on the blog, which is live again – https://www.thestatszone.com/ucl-fantasy-matchday-4-live-blog
Same here. Clean sweep on the late ones anyway. Even Marlos starts which was semi doubtful. As were the Liverpool full backs for my double CS!
Marlos! :dance: 😎
Again! :bouncy-balls:
39 points in 2 weeks for Moreno and TAA :oogle: Worth playing my WC just for that I think :biggun: More for the ironic laugh than the points… :big-lol:
Top shooting boss man.
Very well done. :ok:
Probably should have captained one of them for both games as Cookie suggested last week. Although he doesn’t have the best record with such capo suggestions where defenders are concerned so I can be forgiven for swerving that particular one
Outrageous!
Want me to write the Tips article for you next time? :hippo: :smiling:
Yes please.
Oh. You’re not speaking to me?
Still. Yes please.
Evening
So do we think Kane is 100% fit? Want to do laca to Kane for this GW.
Evening. Yes. No issues there. They need a league win too so there’ll be no messing around with that.
Cappo?
Any other moves I should be thinking about? No problem taking a -4
No shit you don’t! Depends on Kolasinac maybe? Also Sterling is an obvious issue now too. Maybe less so as it’s a break after this week though.
Any suggestions for kola?
Happy to keep sterling would rather get shot of silva
You’re on the wrong article again! :see-no:
Ha ha! I just click on the latest comments and post there… sorry