Captain Picks Fantasy Football Game-week 5 – Fantasy Premier League 2015/16
This break needs to end! It’s hard to imagine life without our beloved FPL. Four gameweeks. Four 2-point captains. Four fails. Unless you captained Coutinho last gameweek – or triple captained him for that matter – you can’t be faring much worse than I am when it comes to choosing an FPL captain. So here’s a great idea! Take a glance at 5 of my recommendations. Try not to become too absorbed in it all though: reading my captaincy advice is arguably similar to sitting around in second-hand smoke (anyone seen Tekno lately? This ain’t fag smoke…) and probably won’t do your league rankings any favours. Then, preferably quite a while afterwards, go ahead and choose from the pool of players that I’ve left untouched. After each description I’ve rated the player on 3 factors – form, fixture and explosiveness – mainly because I’m quite a numerical guy. Hopefully it’ll help you decide which player (in particular) to avoid at all costs. I mean “captain” sorry…Please note that all of the ratings are subjective; they’re my views only. Feel free to slaughter them in the comments below! By the way, I never give perfect 10s out. Not even on IMDb.
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Riyad Mahrez – home vs Aston Villa
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[/three_fourth]What better place to start than FPL’s most selected player? Well – the 2nd most selected behind Clyne – but if we ignore the Liverpool fans’ influence then Mahrez basically is the game’s most popular pick.
15, 10, 10 and 1 point hauls. Just a precautionary withdrawal at half-time against Bournemouth stopped him from potentially scoring that late Leicester penalty, to bag his 5th goal of the season already, and perhaps his 4th maximum BP haul too. So close to 12 out of 12 there. He has recovered from that minor back injury and appeared for Algeria in the international break.
This week Riyad faces a Villa side (who have a love affair with losing) at home. Although to be fair – the Villans haven’t been as woeful as many expected so far – that’s been Sunderland’s job.
Y’see, normally I’d recommend that you captain whoever’s playing the Black Shats, but unfortunately it’s Spurs this weekend… so Mahrez it is!
Form: 7
Fixture: 8
Explosiveness: 6
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Bafetimbi Gomis – away vs Watford
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[/three_fourth]Bafetimbi Gomis is the only player in the Premier League to have scored in all 4 games of the season so far. Which sounds pretty damn reliable to me. Swansea have scored 7 goals already and often looked impressively free-flowing in attack.
However, he’s only picked up 1 BP thus far, which is where I think Andre Ayew comes in and warrants a mention: he’s also had a hand in 4 goals for Swansea (3 goals and 1 assist) but has picked up 6 BPs during this time. Both players are (theoretically) worthy captain picks for this gameweek.
Another word of warning – this will be Watford’s 3rd home game of the season and they haven’t conceded a goal at Vicarage Road yet. So this match could be a tight one! It’s hard to see Gomis grabbing more than 1 goal here.
Form: 7
Fixture: 6
Explosiveness: 5
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Callum Wilson – away vs Norwich
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[/three_fourth]This guy is pretty much the only thing that’s kept my FPL team alive. He’s also the 3rd and final player on this list who’s managed to score 4 goals in the Premier League already! Completing the season’s top-scoring trio. Sorry for making such predictable picks…
This is the first clash between any of the promoted teams and it may well be a high scoring affair. Just look at Bournemouth’s record in the Championship. Or, alternatively, just ask Bilic about West Ham’s last home match! (That was for you NIN.)
Scoring 4 goals in 2 games, including an amazing overhead against Leicester last gameweek, is form that’s very hard to ignore. Callum Wilson’s ownership has now risen to over 20% for good reason and what may also help him is his new strike partner Glenn Murray, bought to the club late on in the transfer window.
Form: 8
Fixture: 7
Explosiveness: 6
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Sergio Aguero – away vs Crystal Palace
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[/three_fourth]Now it’s on to the ‘big boys’… well, ok, the big boys of last season at least. Unless you have nerves of steel, the choice for this weekend is probably between these next 2 candidates.
Sergio doesn’t need talking up by me, or indeed anyone really, because we all know that he’s a beast. Many would argue that he should be perma-captain for the whole season when fit. So, instead, let’s take a look at why he might NOT be the right call this weekend.
All players are affected by form and, right now, it’s just not really with Aguero. He’s only been involved in 1 of Man City’s 10 goals to date. (Just imagine what’ll happen to City’s opposition when he IS on fire!) That said, it’s a bit of a miracle that he didn’t score a hat-trick against Chelsea, so in fact maybe he’s actually not as out-of-form as it might seem. Aguero doesn’t always need form either; see my ‘explosiveness’ rating below.
The other major negative that I can see is that City are playing away from home against a (current) Champions League qualifying side in Crystal Palace. So far the only team to beat Palace is Arsenal (no biased facts to see here) and everyone else that’s played them has lost. Could this be where City’s 100% record ends?
Yet, despite all this, the Eagles are still searching for their 1st clean sheet and I can’t see them shutting out Aguero. Would you decline the offer to have 2 of him in your FPL team this weekend? I’m not sure that I would…
Form: 4
Fixture: 5
Explosiveness: 9
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Alexis Sanchez – home vs Stoke
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[/three_fourth]Arsenal hate going to The Britannia to play Stoke. It’s a dodgy fixture for them and you wouldn’t fancy trusting any Arsenal player with the FPL armband.
Oh wait… what’s that… Arsenal are playing them at home? Scrap that. The last time that happened, this Alexis guy scored 2 goals, whilst assisting Koscielny’s headed opener to boot! That made for a 19 point haul… or 38 points if you were shrewd about it.
Let’s face it, he hasn’t been tearing up the League so far, but his impressive shots per game stats are more than enough to suggest he’ll be scoring big soon. He scored the winner in Chile’s 3-2 win over Paraguay on Saturday night. If there wasn’t an underlying worry that “everyone else will captain Aguero though” then he’d be my #1 pick for this weekend as I believe that Stoke are there for the taking. Arsenal have won all seven Premier League matches at home to Stoke, scoring seventeen goals in the process, while Stoke are yet to keep a clean sheet this season. Tempted?
Form: 3
Fixture: 7
Explosiveness: 8
Thanks for taking the time to glance at my 5 picks. Or perhaps 6 if [A]yew happen to be feeling pedantic today. Sorry… I’m nearly done now. Don’t worry, there are literally hundreds of other players to choose from, all of whom I haven’t jinxed. Good luck and I wish you well in climbing up the rankings over the coming weeks.
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Triple Captain Chip
Just a quick word on the new feature this season. It pretty much does what it says on the tin and trebles your points for your captain on whichever game-week you choose to deploy it. We shall touch on this as and when we feel the opportunity presents itself to use it effectively but this in all likelihood is one to save for when we encounter double game-weeks later on in the season.
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Thanks for reading Captain Picks Fantasy Football Game-week 5. This article was written by James777Simpson
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Thanks James! Really good read, love everyone’s different styles.
Starting to think losing Sanchez for a hit was a baaad move :cuckoo:
You did what?!!!! On another note, looking forward to CC’s tips this week as a sub for Kop 😉 Seriously. :hippo:
Oh it’s gonna be a real humdinger! You’ll be crying out to get Kop’s sanity back again
Going with aguero myself! anyone using wild card? I don’t know if to. Here’s mine. 0.7 in the bank
That doesn’t look like a WC is a necessity. Maybe switch Defoe if you can but otherwise it looks fine.
Was thinking that mate. Defoe to Wilson maybe?
That would probably be my move given that team.
Nice one James.
I’ll take it as a good sign that all 5 of those players are currently in my team. That means I’ll probably have to captain one of them though… damn! 😉
I’ve only got 2 which cuts it down nicely and I don’t actually fancy either for capo this week! If I had Sanchez I’d be on him I think.
Yeah, between him and Aguero for me.
Will probably go for Aguero, partly because Arsenal’s home form has been poor. Mainly because I’d be too scared not to!
Pedro and Wilson (Bou) or Benteke and Ayew?
That’s a tough call MayAr but I’d side with Benteke and Ayew.
Is that your current team linked? If so then you have Gomis, so I’d go Wilson and Pedro.
Do not have Gomis. I have Aguero, Kane and Pelle.
Did you link your team yet this season? If not then you have someone else’s team linked.
I think I’d still go Pedro & Wilson.
WTF, not sure how someone else’s team got linked. I just updated it.
Thoughts on these selections for this week? Am I right to use the AOA chip?
Just a thought: Isn’t it kind of risky to use the AOA chip right after an international break? For all we know, one of your eight attacking players might come back with some minor issue (knock, hangover, etc). And then the chip goes poof.
If you really want to use it, wait until the last pressers to hit the button.
Good word Machos! My worry is actually more about the number of attackers I have playing away this week. I would rather play Oxford and guess which away attacker won’t score. Which do you think I should leave out?
Looks a good call to me !