Captain’s Picks Fantasy Football Gameweek 27

Captains Picks Fantasy Football Gameweek 27 – Fantasy Premier League 2014/15

Hello friends and welcome to your Captains Article for GW27. Now this article relates to the original fantasy football EPL game. You remember that one? We used to love this in the days before we were distracted by the UEFA Champions League and Europa League fantasy games, all those substitutions and captaincy changes strewn over the course of nine days for the former or four hours in the case of the latter. MLS fantasy is starting back up which a lot of us enjoy greatly – only the Americans can come up with a game where price changes are based upon your performance in one game, providing you play 45 minutes at least of course, such as is their fascination with fast-paced gaming and basically being a bit different! Apparently now cricket too has been getting big licks with the fantasy brush. So I’ve heard. Let’s be honest, can you really take a sport seriously where Scotland qualify for the World Cup? Anyway back to the real fantasy.

The flipside of the forthcoming doubler in GW28 is that GW27 contains a measly eight matches to rummage around in and pick you out some captaincy choices.
There’s no Chelsea, no Eriksen or Kane either due to the Rumbelow’s Cup Final, so there goes around 50% of the choices. Also, the four teams who play on Sunday will be coming off the back of European matches (Liverpool far-travelled too) and the threat of rotation/injuries/fatigue means a captain from any of these teams could be seen as some form of risk. This’ll be fun!

The Fixtures
West Ham United v Crystal Palace
Burnley v Swansea
Manchester United v Sunderland
Newcastle United v Aston Villa
Stoke City v Hull City
West Bromwich Albion v Southampton
Liverpool v Manchester City
Arsenal v Everton

The contenders:
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[/three_fourth]Diafra Sakho – The Senegalese has, in his debut season, which has been interrupted twice by injury, registered a better than one goal in every two games average. Impressive stuff. He scored last time out against Tottenham and impressed this writer with a very good all-round performance in the Manchester United match. With Andy Carroll again injured and Carlton Cole limping out of the Tottenham match, the quest for goals will rest with Sakho and Enner Valencia but it is the striker with eight league goals as opposed to Valencia’s three, that forms the selection. The Irons play Crystal Palace who have only kept one clean sheet in six.

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[/three_fourth]Danny Ings – The Burnley forward broke through the 100 point mark with his goal at Old Trafford last week, his ninth of the season. A bit of a lad for the bonus points as well, he has 14, the England Under-21 striker could get to double figures in this week’s home game versus in-and-out Swansea. He is aided and abetted by street–fighter Ashley Barnes in a traditional front two and, with respect, Ings has the ability to move on to greater things than Burnley but whilst he is there, he will surely continue to find the net for the Lancashire side. He has an ownership of just 7.2% and can be picked up for less than £6.0M. Will anyone be brave enough to pass him the armband?

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[/three_fourth]Angel di Maria – The United winger / striker / No.10 / midfielder / wing-back (does anyone know where anyone plays at Old Trafford these days?) has three assists in his last two games and is second overall on the assist table to Fabregas of Chelsea (no shame there I suppose). United face Sunderland and this game could go one of two ways – it’s going to be a tight 0-0 or 1-1 (Sunderland are notoriously tight when they want to be) or the Red Devils will score early, add early and cruise it. If it is the latter then surely ADM is going to be involved. On paper, this is the most attractive match for captaincy and whilst Robin van Persie, if fit, may have his supporters, it could be another time for ADM’s 15.1% of owners to put their faith in the former Real Madrid man. Although, a word of caution, he has not scored since GW7. Assists and bonus points (he has amassed 10) could be your hope here.

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[/three_fourth]Sadio Mane – Before he was so rudely called away on Africa Cup of Nations duty, (Koeman should have followed Big Sam’s lead with Sakho by writing a ‘please excuse’ note), the attacker from Senegal scored in three straight games for the Saints. He came back from the ACON and scored the winner against QPR which was his sixth goal of the season. Captaining him is a risk as he was dropped to the bench for the Liverpool match (for being late to the ground – Koeman later confirmed he was due to start the game) but with Tadic, Elia and Djuricic seeing their share of rotation and Pelle sadly going through of ‘those’ spells in front of goal, Mane is probably Koeman’s best bet to try to get Southampton back on track at West Brom.

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[/three_fourth]Sergio Aguero – When it comes to Sunday’s double clash of the Euro Titans (?!), then a watching brief of the preceding continental match-ups is advised. There are many names who could in theory have your armband – Sturridge, Aguero, Silva, Alexis, Cazorla, Walcott, Ozil, Giroud – but it’s who plays first in Europe and who is rested and raring to go for the weekend that matters here. It’s so hard to call but if I was to call one, then it would have to be Aguero who I expect will at least start each of City’s remaining games this season if fit. And he has proved countless times in the past that there are no tricky games when he and City are at the peak of their powers.

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Traffic Signals:

RED: (Take a punt): Diafra Sakho
AMBER (Proceed with caution): Angel di Maria
GREEN: (If you have him, armband him): Sergio Aguero

Final thought:
This week is going to be a very tricky one to call based on the missing teams, teams with commitments elsewhere and some evenly matched fixtures.
Putting a positive spin on it, you could however, with the right captain, make giant strides this week. Why don’t you put the armband on an outsider if you are chasing a mini-league? With no Chelsea about the place, the possibility of Liverpool and City cancelling each other out and Arsenal facing a potentially tricky one, this could be the ideal week to twist.
Just be sure to let me know who to go for!

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Thanks for reading Captain’s Picks Fantasy Football Gameweek 27. This article was written by The Gallant Pioneer

Follow @mitchellcraig81

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WooFBet
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