Captain Picks Fantasy Football Gameweek 22

Captains Picks Fantasy Football Gameweek 22 – Fantasy Premier League 2014/15

Hello and welcome to your first tartan-tainted captains article of 2015 so Guid New Year to yin an’ all and lang may yer lum reek. *confusion and polite smiling sweeps across the boards*
Before we begin I would like to say a thank you to Lawdogg for his first and hopefully not last, Captains article last week, which was excellent. Welcome to the cappo crew Mr D. And the “elfin executioner?” Bravo.
Right let’s start with a quick fire quiz, shall we?
1. Have you made a New Year’s Resolution?
2. Have you stuck to the diet so far?
3. Have you visited the gym like you said?
4. Have you started looking for that new job?
5. Have you pumped yourself full of the confidence to ask that girl out?
6. Did you nail the captaincy pick in Gameweek 21?
If the answer to number six is ‘YES’ then sod the rest of them. And well done.

The Fixtures for GW22
Aston Villa v Liverpool
Burnley v Crystal Palace
Leicester City v Stoke City
Queens Park Rangers v Manchester Utd.
Tottenham Hotspur v Sunderland
Swansea City v Chelsea
Newcastle Utd. v Southampton
West Ham Utd. v Hull City
Manchester City v Arsenal
Everton v West Bromwich Albion

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Well my main man this week will come as no surprise. Papiss Ci . . . . “He’s where? ‘African’ what now? For how long?” Oh stuff this. Cancel the gameweek!!

My Five:

Harry Kane (home vs Sunderland)
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[/three_fourth]Apparently he’s ‘one of their own’, I don’t know if you’d heard? Funny though, when it emerged this week a picture of an eight-year old Harry with an Arsenal strip on in his boys club team. I’m sure with the form the forward is in, The ‘Lane will let slide that minor misnomer as Mr Kane is in white hot form and will be in the England squad for sure come March. From his double-goal and double-assist haul in the 5-3 taking apart of Chelsea to his exquisite drag back and sweet finish against Crystal Palace, the youngster has now established beyond doubt that he is the number one striker for Spurs. He has averaged a goal a game across his last six fixtures and notched three assists and a blinding 11 bonus points in that same period. This is scintillating form. Next up are Sunderland at home and he is going be one popular choice this weekend.

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Eden Hazard (away vs Swansea)
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[/three_fourth]I remember the last time I wrote a captaincy article mentioning how Hazard was the prime example of a home-bird and that he didn’t present much excitement when the Blues were on the road. Well scratch that. With an assist at Stoke and goals against Tottenham and Southampton topped up with four bonus points, maybe the Swansea ball-boys aren’t the only ones to fear the arrival of the Belgian this weekend. 24 points in these last three away days, averaging a juicy eight points might just convince you to side once again with the mercurial midfielder. When you look back across his points tallies for individual games so far this season, his worst back-to-back scores were a ‘2’ and a ‘3’ together in October (both away games unsurprisingly and even then these two scores were sandwiched between scores of 11 and 10). Maybe then a blank at home to Newcastle may not be a reason to desert the man now. Again, he is the man guaranteed to play 90 minutes for Jose’s men and should be amongst the points if Chelsea secure victory against the Swans.

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Andy Carroll (home vs Hull)
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[/three_fourth]The Sizeable Striker scored a goal at Swansea which if it had been scored by Sanchez, Aguero or Suarez, we’d still be toasting it. Yet somehow the fine finish by the Hulking Hitman has been lost on the media. If you watch it once more, yes he gets a little break from the defender but the skill, balance and finish was straight from the top drawer. The Mountainous Marksman now turns his attention to Hull. Poor, poor Hull, I’m not feeling sorry for them, I mean they are a poor, poor team. Sorry Tigers fans. Anyway, back to the Gigantic Goal-getter. Alright so he isn’t exactly racking the goals up that Harry Kane is, but sometimes the fixture can sway a captain pick and this may be one such occasion. The good news is that the Hull fixture is at the Boleyn and three of the four goals scored by the Huge Hairy Headerer since his return from injury have been in front of his own lot. The form of Stewart Downing in behind Ginormous Geordie is also a key factor and undoubted attraction to siding with Carroll. Let’s hope for the sake of his fantasy owners, the Hammers and perhaps even Roy Hodgson, that the Lanky Liverpool Leftover keeps himself fit and starts smashing in the goals (or even floating them into the top corner which he can obviously do).

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Alexis Sanchez (away vs Man City)
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[/three_fourth]The Chilean is the best player in the league currently and this is clearly transferring to the fantasy game. On his own as the top point scorer with an incredible 141, made up of 12 goals, seven assists and TWENTY TWO bonus points (also the highest tally in the league), it really should be remembered that this is the man’s debut season – struggling to adapt he is not. He is everything Luis Suarez is and everything Mesut Ozil is not. He runs himself in to the ground for his team, each of his team-mates and his manager and he is being justly rewarded. He takes (and scores) free kicks from the edge of the box and wins, takes and well, misses the odd penalty – his only black mark was the awfully struck penalty against QPR. For balance though, it should be said that despite that poor penalty, Sanchez still managed to score, assist and collect two bonus points in that game to finish with 10 points, which is just remarkable. Off the back of a 19 point haul against Stoke, Sanchez heads to the Etihad to face a City side who despite being reigning champions, are not defending like champions as they have not kept a clean sheet in their last five matches in all competitions. I am a great believer in playing the player and not the fixture and on form, few are as appealing as Arsenal’s main man. One thing to bear in mind, if you do armband the South American, you could expect a huge rise in the rankings if he delivers as few will select him for captaincy purely on the location of his next game. Regardless of this week’s captaincy, if you are on a Wildcard this week, get him in your side. It would be foolish to ignore him.

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Sergio Aguero (home vs Arsenal)
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[/three_fourth]My fifth and final mention this week is the returning Argentine (or do I say Argentinian? Can’t remember now…). An appearance from the bench at Goodison Park last weekend has caused a stampede to get the City man back in our teams. Some will hold their nerve and let him ride out the Arsenal and Chelsea matches before getting him in and that’s fine. I bet though, they’ll be holding more than their nerves if Sergio starts this weekend! Anyway he is mentioned here because those who bring him in must surely revert to what comes natural and captain the man. If he is fit to start, he is fit to score is the best way to look at it. And he is up against Per Mertesacker which has the potential to make the tortoise and the hare seem ‘nip and tuck’.
*Please note that two of my selections could potentially, and in all probability will, feature for their clubs in home F.A. Cup replay ties this midweek. It will be worth noting the time spent on the pitch of both Andy Carroll and Harry Kane in their clubs respective matches against Everton and Burnley.

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As usual, here are the traffic lights . . .
RED (Take a punt if you have him): Andy Carroll
AMBER (Proceed with caution): Sergio Aguero
GREEN (If you have him, armband him): Harry Kane
A final thought:
If you get the captaincy right, soak it up, enjoy it and never take it for granted. You are only one gameweek away from having a ‘Giroud’. The new name I have invented for when your captain has a stinker (thanks for the red against QPR mate!)
Let’s get #dontdoagiroud trending.
Enjoy your football.

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Thanks for reading Captain’s Picks Fantasy Football Gameweek 22. This article was written by The Gallant Pioneer

Follow @mitchellcraig81

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