Captains Picks Fantasy Football Gameweek 9 – Fantasy Premier League 2014/15
So there I was. A sunny Friday in the spring of 1996. Saffron Walden County High School playing fields. Lunchtime. A slight figure of a 16 year old, desperately needing to finish the week with a win. It was my turn to be captain, and I’d won the toss to pick first.
I surveyed the crop of young men standing in front of me. Who would be first into my team? Who could ensure my bragging rights through free period after lunch, through double Geography and – if my fake ID held up to scrutiny – through a Friday night’s drinking in the White Horse? Decisions just didn’t get bigger than this.
Stuart was the obvious choice, but as I looked at him, something just didn’t look right. I knew the problem couldn’t be me. I was a fine captain. My lack of stature meant all of my players could always play wherever the hell they wanted. In fact some of my finest moments had come from playing the lone GK/defender role, gladly supporting my team as the 10 bigger players shared the 10 striker positions. No, it was something else. “What’s the matter Stu-pot (cos I was captain I could use nicknames that I had not earned the right to use)?”, I asked. “Litter duty” was the reply. “I can only play 15 mins, then I’ve got to pick up litter with the deputy head for getting caught smoking”. Wow, I thought. That’s a blow. Now don’t get me wrong, even 15 mins of an on-form Stu could have the game won. But it was a risk.
“What about you Dave?”, I asked. Flexing my managerial muscles as I dismissed Stu without a second thought. “Yeah, I’m good for the full 40 mins” replied Dave. There was a ‘but’ coming. I knew it. “But…” I was right. “But, I’ve forgotten my trainers so will have to play in my slip ons”. Panic started to set in. “But they’ll give you no purchase on the slippery turf Dave!”. This wasn’t going well.
I could see that my natural 3rd and 4th choices Nick and Rob were distracted by the group of year 10 girls sitting on the side lines. They’d be no use. People were looking at me. I had to make a decision. Lunchtime was 5 minutes old and we hadn’t even picked teams!
And then, just as I could feel that first bead of anxious sweat trickle down the side of my ribcage, from the back of the crowd stepped forward a face that was new to me. “Who are you?!” I demanded. “I’m the new exchange student” was the nervous reply. “But you’re wearing proper football boots!” I exclaimed. “And, wait… Yes! They’re Puma Kings!”. The excitement started to build. “What’s your name?” I enquired. My tone starting to soften. “Diego Pele” was the reply.
“I PICK HIM!”
And so onto this week’s Captains picks, where we also find our apparent cast of plenty, dwindling away before our very eyes. Costa is a doubt, Man Utd and Liverpool might as well be playing in slip-on shoes, and I wouldn’t be surprised if Aguero somehow picks up litter duty between now and the weekend.
Let’s have a proper look see, in no particular order…
Diego Costa. Chelsea. Away vs Man Utd.
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[/three_fourth]Captain him by all means. But for the love of Jose, please give proper thought to who gets the Vice Captaincy. Not many things worse than your captain not playing. One thing might be however, realizing that you left the VC armband on the same guy as last week. You know the guy. The one that’s now injured too!
There’s not much to say about Costa that you don’t already know, so I won’t bore you with stats. If Jose shows his hand in the Friday press conference, and it’s good news, he can have the armband. Man Utd’s defence has been generous to strikers this season, and long gone are the days where Jose parks the bus against Utd. This could get messy.
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Danny Welbeck. Arsenal. Away vs Sunderland.
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[/three_fourth]He didn’t manage another hat-trick, but he did at least keep his scoring run going against Hull in Arsenals 2-2 draw on the weekend. A goal that meant a lot for both club and player alike. It means Arsenal go into this weekend’s game against a demoralised Sunderland with something to prove after a disappointing performance against Hull, but not as downbeat as they might’ve been had Welbeck not grabbed that 90th minute equalizer. Sunderland themselves will have something to prove, but who knows how many changes Poyet will make after the 8-0 thrashing last time out. Arsenal have a good record against Sunderland too. Comfortable 3-1 and 4-1 wins last season.
With Arsenals attacking options and a possible Walcott return, Welbs should get plenty of chances. He’s averaging 3.6 shots per game (4th highest in the Prem), and we’d expect him to shoot above that average this weekend.
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Graziano Pelle. Southampton. Home vs Stoke.
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[/three_fourth]Pelle has taken the 3rd highest number of shots per game (4) out of all Premier League players. He scored 2 goals, got an assist and 2 bps last time out, and has scored 5 in his last 3 home games. Another tasty home tie coming up against a Stoke side that lost their last away game to… wait for it…Sunderland! Stoke lost, to Sunderland! That same team that just lost 8-0 to Pelle’s Southampton! Wait, that stat wasn’t even that exciting! Why am I using so many exclamation marks?!
Anyway. He’s got to be a safe bet for good points this week. He comes without any injury risk (at time of writing), and is playing for one of the form teams in the league.
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Sergio Aguero. Man City. Away vs West Ham.
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[/three_fourth]He scored how many? And still had time to miss a penalty. Aguero is the games top points’ earner with a whopping 56. He has accumulated 9 bonus points so far this season, and has scored a goal to go with each of them. No assists yet, but nobody’s perfect.
He is second highest in… [digs out favorite new stat list] number of shots per game with 4.5. Although he may as well be top, as top spot officially goes to Balotelli. Do shots stats count if you never actually score?
Aguero also bagged two of City’s three goals in a 3-1 win last time these sides met. He’ll be in the top three most popular captain choices this week, even if Costa returns.
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Other possibles…
Fabregas, Hazard & Oscar. Fab has the headlines so far this season but Hazard tends to do well against the big teams. Oscar is more of a game time risk but Jose loved him last season and he plays further forward than Fab, and more central than Hazard. Any or all of these 3 could turn in a decent points haul this weekend.
Leighton Baines. A nice fixture against a winless Burnley side that have just shipped three goals against West Ham. Just off the back of a clean sheet, 2 assists and some bonus points. If you’re ever going to risk it on a defender, now might be that time.
Dusan Tadic. It couldn’t happen again. Could it?
Gabriel Obertan. Because sometimes, you just have to finish with a joke.
Good luck this week everybody. I’ll be placing my trust in that man Aguero.
Thanks for reading Captains Picks Fantasy Football Gameweek 9. This article was written by chins and bellies
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Morning guys,
0.2 short of a straight swap from Costa to Aguero. Any help would be appreciated…. Team is linked.
Xabi, you’d have to lose one of your better players to accommodate Kun…or lose one of your keepers for a 4mln one……
N.Taylor -> Wisdom
Xabi…
How about only having one playing keeper ? It’s what I do, and not only does it stop you from benching points every week it takes away the headache decision of who to play when you get both with a decent fixture.
For me, i’d downgrade Mannone to 4.0 and the Robert’s your fathers brother !
(this is assuming your happy to ignore Di Maria’s injury
)
Thanks for the options you lot – gives me some good food for thought. Yeah, keeping an eye on ADM.
Alexis is my 1st mid. Which 3 would be the best to have next to him?
Hazard, Di Maria and Barkley – 0 in the bank
Sterling, Di Maria and Tadic – 0 in the bank.
Sterling, Di Maria and Barkley – 0.9 in the bank
Hazard, Sterling and Barkley – 1.2 in the bank
Sterling still have great fixtures, Di Maria is still “injured” and Hazard is a questionmark, I do have Pelle but Tadic is still tempting.
What do you guys think?
Barkley could be changed to Sigurdsson or Chadli. I have yet to decide if Barkley is ready for my team.
Cody I think u should go with hazard di maria and barkley…Coz the way Liverpool are playing I don’t think they can win against Hull…Also u can go with lallana or henderson and then think of tadic if possible
Chuck – I just noticed that I can do Hazard, Sterling and Tadic aswell, I’m not going with that though.
I mean, your comment makes sense cus in the long run it’s very easy to buy Sterling back when I have 3 mids that are more expensive than him. Say I want him back when Sturridge is back, it would be an easy swap for Alexis, Hazard or Di Maria. I don’t really fancy having either Lallana nor Henderson in my team. The only other Pool players I would have is Gerrard because of his set pieces. I’m having a really hard time convincing myself to drop Sterling, because he is my favourite Premier league player. My second favourite after Mario Götze.
You’re right. Hazard, Di Maria and Barkley/Chadli is the best choice. If Di Maria is fit, of course. If not then Sterling is back in my team.
Cody are u using wildcard or just making the team for first time..
can u uplod a image of ur team?
Chuck – Wildcard.
Cody I think you should have one of clyne or Bertrand in ur defense..coz wisdom may not always be consistent
But I have Forster.
Yeah i thought so..
Hey guys…I have used my wildcard…My problem is that I want fabregas for next game week…
But I don’t want to remove Eriksen and Aguero…I may remove sagna and Tadic…I will take clyne for sagna…But how can I get fabregas?
Hi Chuck, are you saying you are on a WC this week or just that it’s gone already? I wouldn’t bother with Sagna, he’s not guaranteed starts by any means. Really up to you then as to which mid to lose. I get not wanting to part with Eriksen but someone’s got to go. Aguero stays regardless.
Hey inittowinit..
I want fabregas or welbeck..Fabregas is very expensive and I guess I will buy him by changing di Maria as United City clash is expected to go in city’s favour
Hutnthen how about sagna out andbwisdom in and berahino out welbeck in
Yes that all makes good sense. Berahino could be a tidy differential though. Their fixtures aren’t bad either.
Got 2 FTs and absolutely no idea what to do!
De Gea (Schmeichel)
Ivanovic, Chambers, Duff, O’Shea, Wilson
Eriksen, Di Maria, Sigurdsson, Traore, Sterling
Aguero, Naismith, Costa
Di Maria out, Sanchez in? Costa out, Pelle in?
Bertrand for O’Shea? Ah the choices.
Ivan to Baines, no?
How much moneda you got en la banco ?
0!
I hate it when people say this but I am going to anyway… Wait til Friday to see what we can glean from the pressers..
If Costa is out again, I think i’m going to get rid. It’s too much cashola to leave on my bench for 2 weeks and same with Di Maria, boom he’s gone if there’s any doubt. You could do a lot with that cash from those 2. Sanchez and Pelle are 2 i’d be looking at… Coleman / Baines too should be on your radar..
But it’s difficult to say without knowing what the injury status is, sorry mate
Hello all ! It’s me ! Look…. HELLO ! I’m here…
So everyone seems to be happy to ignore the Costa and Di Maria injuries…. Is it just purely for value purposes (costa) or is it because no-one actually believes his injured?
I understand that people may be waiting on Di Maria n ting.. He may / may not and all that.
What we sayin ?
Evening everyone, thank you for all the kind words the other day with regards the arrival of our daughter, I was getting regular updates on Twitter which was excellent!
As I’ve said to a few people recently, the guys who put so much time and effort into running this site have done an amazing job making this a community rather than a website, something that only comes with a lot of hard work. Thanks and keep up the amazing work.
What a few days; a new daughter and up to 298 in the world! Yes Init, I saw your comment about which I Tweeted first, the juries out on that one! 😉
Massive and huge big fat congratulations on the arrival mate… Daughters are special mate. I wouldn’t swap mine for the world.. well, maybe sometimes I’d consider it ! Is she your first ?
28 !?! Wow… Just WOW… Make sure you stick around (as much as possible) so you can soak up as much info as possible. Good going, keep it up.
Oh and +1 on all the stuff about this site. I couldn’t agree more
Hey Demsie, no this is my second daughter, shes two. And I couldn’t agree more, they certainly keep you on your toes! How many do you have?
Yer I try to get on as often as possible, the time difference makes it hard although as the site becomes more popular it is certainly becoming a world wide affair! Thanks though mate (although it is 298 and not 28, I can dream though……………….)
Haha… That’s my Dad-eyes kicking in there.. sorry. 298 is still absolutely amazing though !
I have just the 1 (at the moment) and she is 20 months old so ours are pretty close in age… Sometimes she makes me feel like I have about 4, she runs me ragged ! She is amazing but can sometimes be a little tinker ! How’s your 1st adapting to life with the 2nd ? I’m very interested in that …….
Its early days but so far fine. Shes been getting a little upset recently (very unlike her) but that’s because her mum is in the birthing center and im in and out of her grandparents. We go home tomorrow so that will be the true test! I’ll keep you posted!
Congratulations on the birth of your daughter NZ – on top of the world at the minute huh!?
Couldn’t agree more, found this site when FFC decided he was folding the site and I’m glad to see a lot of the regulars from there on ‘ere too ! This site is ran by a great set of guys with a helpful and friendly community. The nomination is fully deserved and the award too. Fingers crossed!
Literally I am Xabi and thanks for your kind words mate. Well said regarding the Blogging Awards, I’ve just tweeted my nomination!
Congrats on the birth of your daughter NZ, i hope both mother and child are both very well.
Thanks Photek, they are both well.
Many congrats in person Alex. That’s a fantastic rank mate. Oh and well done on the baby daughter too 😉 I was only stating fact! You mentioned the baby in passing later on after you’d done a lap of honour on twitter for your rankings
Thanks Init, it means so much to me, it has quite simply changed my life. Although having a second daughter does mean i’ll be spending less time maintaining my rank which is a concern! 😉