Fantasy Football Captains Picks Gameweek 4
When asked by the FF247 beaks if I would like to help out with the captains article, without a moments hesitation I said ‘yes’. Then a few minutes later I thought… I HATE the captain rule. Absolutely essential to the game I admit and I would never want to see it taken away but are you like me? Do you see the ‘Team of the Week’ being boosted by a relegation-haunted reserve centre back with a captain’s armband on, who has just scored the first two goals in his career and kept a clean sheet against the strongest team in the league and some guy down in 3 quillionth place rises a zillion places because of it? And you think? How? How can you possibly have captained him? Just me? OK let’s go…
ARSENAL v MANCHESTER CITY
Starting with the game of the week – there will be lots of choices in this one. For Arsenal we have Ramsey, Alexis and Welbeck (two goals this past week for England and confidence given a huge boost). For the visitors, Toure, Silva (Monday night scorer for Spain), Aguero, ‘Dzovetic’. (I combine these two as your guess is as good as mine as to who will play). (editor – probably the Dz bit if the ovetic bit is as injured as it may first appear!).
The thing is though, very rarely will most managers back even their best players for the armband when they are playing a fellow big 4/5/6 club.
Therefore, there is probably greater point-haul potential to be found in our next three matches…
[divider_1px]
CHELSEA v SWANSEA CITY
Week four and we have a ‘top-of-the-table’ clash with both teams putting their 100% records on the line. Swansea have professionally, and with clean sheets, dispatched both West Brom and Burnley at home after their opening day win at Old Trafford and will never arrive at The Bridge in better shape. Chelsea have started nervously, managing to run in only 11 (E L E V E N) goals in their first three matches! Irresistible force meeting the immovable object was coined for this one.
Diego Costa
Now at the time of writing he is an injury doubt (déjà vu here eh?). He played 60 minutes in Spain’s 1-0 defeat to France in Paris last week and it then emerged he had a hamstring strain and was excused Spain’s qualifier against FYR Macedonia on Monday night. A few of his Spanish teammates (Sliva was one) tweeted late last week that Costa was ‘fine’. I would say wait for Mourinho on Friday for further details but would that be any use to you after last week’s presser? Seriously though, there will surely be some update come Friday.
Statistically the man has four goals in three league games including two in his latest league outing at Everton (in which he also created two ‘big chances’). The only slight concern is the red-mist which seems to never be far away. He was involved in an altercation with Tim Howard in the Everton game having allegedly goaded Seamus Coleman about his own goal.
The sensible move if you do plan to captain him would be to have the ‘next best’ in your squads with the Vice Captain title.
Eden Hazard/Cesc Fabregas
[three_fourth padding=”0 20px 0 0″]
[/three_fourth]Many teams will have either Haz or Cesc and many will see this as a safer bet than the doubtful Costa which is fair enough. The thing is, Eden Hazard too, has a yellow flag currently but he has a goal and assist this season so information about him on Friday will be key because he will be a sure-fire starter.
As Costa has four goals, Cesc Fabregas has four assists and Chelsea’s tempo seems to be set by the classy Spaniard. He will be central again for the Blues and comes off the back of ninety minutes for Spain on Monday, a game in which he took all Spain’s corners and received a yellow card for a poor second half challenge. Both have solid captaincy claims.
Gylfi Sigurdsson
A huge favourite in fantasy football, the Icelander has a goal already this season at Old Trafford no less, but this one should be a notch or two tougher than that trip. But then he also has four assists in three games – one for the adventurous manager to captain, just to have him in your team may be enough for most.
[divider_1px]
LIVERPOOL v ASTON VILLA
In recent seasons Villa have managed to give Liverpool quite a few scares at Anfield and that is something Liverpool will be looking to avoid this time out. The Villains come in to this one without previous tormentor, Christian Benteke though and Brendan Rodgers sadly will not be able to unleash the SSS (Sterling, Sturridge and SuperMario) in front of the Kop for the first time as Sturridge collected an injury on international duty and will miss a few weeks of action.
Raheem Sterling
This lad can do no wrong at the moment. For my money he is the most exciting player in the league at present, the best player in the England national team, the best fantasy prospect from Liverpool and the best fantasy prospect from midfield. He is 19! A home game against Aston Villa will have the appetite whetted for a number of his owners (42.9% currently) and a tremendous man-of-the-match performance against Tottenham last time out coupled with an excellent international showing on Monday, will have attracted plenty of favour for him. Interestingly, of his three shots at goal in the Spurs match, all three were on target and one resulted in his goal. One of the others was his fantastic dribble and attempt which his manager brilliantly described as being “a run like Ricky Villa with a finish like Ricky Gervais”. Don’t let that put you off!
Mario Balotelli
[three_fourth padding=”0 20px 0 0″]
[/three_fourth]What can we say about Mad Mario that hasn’t already been said, thought or written? He is a nice quiet, down-to-earth chap who is absolutely useless on the football field. There, I think I’ve done it . . .
The Sturridge injury has suddenly catapulted Balo in to the main striker role one would have thought. Although even if Rickie Lambert comes in, Mario will be in the team and looking to break his Reds duck which he almost did at The Lane on his debut. Plenty of Premier League experience and will have a few new owners but who dares captain him? Could be a stroke of madness or genius – much like Balotelli himself really so how appropriate indeed. Twenty goals and three red cards in the league in just over two seasons illustrates the man perfectly.
[divider_1px]
MANCHESTER UNITED v QUEENS PARK RANGERS
Manchester United are going to click sooner or later aren’t they? How many weeks can we continue to say that they are due to paste someone? Well their hand-picked opening fixtures continue with the visit of old padre Rio Ferdinand’s QPR. And oh yeah – they’ve thrown di Maria and Falcao in there too now. Now all you bigger boys play nicely and share out there – Louis is watching you.
Wayne Rooney
Captain of club and country, his solitary club goal this season came on the opening day defeat to Swansea but as with all United players, even though they have been nowhere near convincing, many of us will be attracted to the fact they are playing QPR at home. And that strangely will still be many a manager ‘sold’ on the idea. Shrek will hold the trump card as penalty duties would seemingly lie with him and he is a guaranteed starter amongst the United multi-piece jigsaw.
Angel di Maria
[three_fourth padding=”0 20px 0 0″]
[/three_fourth]He has warmed up for QPR by single-handedly taking apart the World Champions and in their own garden as well. Can’t be bad that. ADM (love it when a player in fantasy becomes known by three initials!), assisted the first three goals and scored the fourth himself for Argentina in their 4-2 drubbing of Germany in Dusseldorf last week. As a direct result, since his debut at Burnley a week past on Saturday, his transfers in stands at 127,192 for the week and equates to a 7.3% ownership. I would guess a great number of his owners will be handing captaincy duties to the Argentine and I would be in no hurry to talk anyone out of such a move.
Radamel Falcao
The Colombian has been brought in on a one-year loan deal from Monaco and so far, the £11.0M striker has just a 3.9% ownership. Now I would imagine a huge number of Wildcard Teams this week will carry him but this can only be based on his past exploits WHEN 100% FIT. He is clearly not at present. Will he be pitched straight in to this new league from minute one or will LVG manage the man properly? It would be no surprise to see him coming off the bench this weekend and in that case makes captaincy of him a tad risky. But sometimes risks work…
[divider_1px]
Author’s tips
I suggested in the early discussions of this article for this season, that the author should put his head on the block and pick his top three each week (I hope it catches on – sorry, colleagues).
Well I’ll practice what I preached and give you in traffic signal order:
RED (Take a wild punt if you have him) – Branislav Ivanovic
AMBER (Proceed with caution) – Diego Costa
GREEN (If you have him, armband him) – Raheem Sterling
I hope you enjoyed this article and don’t forget to vote on the Captain’s Poll.
Thanks for reading Fantasy Football 247 League Updates – Fantasy Premier League 2014-15. This article was written by The Gallant Pioneer
[polldaddy poll=8266480]
Lol, Holland just lost because Janmaat headed the ball to the goalie but was beyond his reach. Give away goal in the 9 2nd minute, pure arrogance. Janmaat suddenly thinks he’s a big shot. Did the same thing 2 times earlier the same match. Weak.
Raz – ha – so he headed it backwards to an opponent?
Not good for Holland at all that result… Janmaat must think he’s invincible now, and after scoring once in a 3-3 draw with Crystal Palace, rightly so! 😉
Stupid way too lose. Hiddink last week said he would never play 5-3-2 or 3-5-2 and how did we start the f-ing day? Yes, 3-5-2 versus B-rated country, no offense. Anyway, it was terrible, hehe. 3-5-2 is really starting to annoy me by the way, haha. And van Gaal doesn’t want to let go of it, after 40 minutes the stepped over to 4-3-3 and it looks much better.
What Janmaat did was pure idiocy, that’s a mistake you only make once in your life. In his case it cost us the match.
It’s not the end of the world but it’s pretty f-ing terrible. Haha. And I already started this night in a bad mood. This is the cherry on the cake. 😉
FFS, so happy when this thing called ”International Break” is over. If it ain’t bad enough we’re getting these kind of breaks, Holland also sucked monkeyballs and lost. RvP sucked, Janmaat sucked… and was cocky on another level. Everything sucked!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Anyway, 1 week ago Sterling was on my mind and he still is. Kind of annoyed because I really Mata, but even if I keep Mata this weekend and he outscores Sterling this weekend, in the long run Sterling wil most def. outscore Mata. Mata and RvP or sort of doomed within this new system with the addition of Falcao and Di Maria.
If I’m thinking of going without Costa on my Wildcard…. Would you call me crazy ?
Depends who else you’ve got up top and what other Chelsea cover you’ve got. When fit he’s almost impossible to ignore though. He’s nowhere near 100% as has 4 goals in 3 games. Oh dear.
Demsie
If you do I’d wager you will be getting him in in around two or three weeks time. Probably for a hit.
Anyone watching the Wales game? Apparently Rambo has limped off?
Don’t know about that Init but Costa should be fit to face the Swans
http://www.theguardian.com/football/2014/sep/08/diego-costa-chelsea-hopeful-injury-swansea?CMP=twt_gu
Sorry misread article.
Costa may well be fit to face Swans.
Rush of blood as I thought I had sorted out my captain choice
init – I didn’t watch any of the games but just seen on the SSN score center that he was taken off in the 90th minute with an injury. I’ll be very upset if he’s out. Very upset indeed.
Hahaha, NiN. Very upset indeed. 😉
Now you know how Wenger feels. 😉
Don’t know if you read this Init but it confirms what you said.
http://hereisthecity.com/en-gb/2014/09/09/arsenal-star-aaron-ramsey-limps-off-for-wales-impact-for-manc
@ Horse
It says oops the page doesn’t exist. So I guess the injury was made up? 😛
@Raz.
That’s a relief.
I wasn’t looking forward to replacing Ramsey. 😉
WTF INNIT! Are you bringer of bad news?
Init
I missed the end of it but the pitch will get the blame. It was an absolute nightmare. Far too many rubber bullets in the synthetic surface and every kick, run or tackle was showing a wave of them behind the player. And I rarely saw one true bounce on the surface. There was an injury waiting to happen on that, sadly it looks like it was Ramsey.
Cheers Horse and yeah sorry Raz! Just checking it out on twitter now. Sounds like a kick and a resultant twist of the ankle. Differeing reports of the severity. Sounds like yet another to add to the ‘Friday’ list. Cookies gonna be a busy boy!
I seriously hope that’s not major.
Bale could’ve won that game all by himself. If Ramsey has gotten injured whilst playing against Andorra I’ll be livid… just before Man City too.
Excellent article GP.
There are many many choices for captain and as there are for the front 7 but as of yet no one head and shoulders above the rest who hasn’t picked up a knock.
Makes it all very interesting.
Thanks GP!
I’ll be captaining Sterling for sure.
Just listened to the new podcast by WFFS, good to hear some of the FF247 team on there!
http://blog.fantasy5live.com/2014/09/04/the-weekly-fantasy-football-show-podcast-the-falcao-conundrum/
Really good isn’t it PvR?! Guys did fantastic. There’s no new one this week I believe but it’s back next Wednesday. Bit of a shame they tagged Bry as being from Bantasy and not us on the website link but maybe there’s something he’s not telling us!
Thanks for the Captain’s article Gallant, some great stuff in there and very informative (like all of your pieces are!).
I’m leaning toward Sterling as captain right now too, although I still have a FT to use so we’ll see what happens between now and the weekend. What’s this I hear about Ramsey, do we have any more information yet? I hope it’s not serious.
Red
No worries. I’ll be doing sterling for capo and I think it is a fair choice.
If you have Ramsey then hold off on any transfers just now, no word yet on his injury. Hopefully not too severe.
Thanks Gallant, will do. How’s your WC team shaping up? I’m jealous of all you guys that played them, but I think I can hold off for now.
Red
There isn’t any real need to be jealous. You only should play it if you feel you need it. You are obviously in decent enough shape just now.
Guzan Mannone
Ivanovic Janmaat Keane Moore Taylor
Sterling Sigurdsson Lamela di Maria Boyd
Aguero Costa Welbeck
Nice looking team Gallant. That’s true but it’s always fun to tinker, like that perfect team is just around the corner!
I like Welbeck in there and I think Lamela is the best pick from the Tottenham midfield (I’ve still got Eriksen but probably not for much longer). You look very strong the whole way around, nice job.
Red – hey there – you keeping Erik this week?
I was going to take him out for Sterling but Ramsey might change that. The fact he got 58 minutes vs Liverpool concerns me.
All,
Can someone highlight to me the risk in having both Henderson and Sterling over the course of Liverpool’s next 12 fixtures?
This would allow me to upgrade a mid def to a premium one (i.e. Baines or Coleman, who I never thought I could have afforded).
GP, I’d like to highlight the risk of having both Henderson and Sterling to you 😉
Just kidding, depends who goes for Hendo mate? Did briefly consider Sterling and Gerrard to be honest!
Hey james. Eriksen is definitely on the chopping block but if he was playing 60+ minutes and could scrape together some points for me I’d try to keep him for the next 2 matches: SUN (A) & WBA (H), and then ditch him for Silva in GW6. 58 minutes last week was concerning though.
I guess it depends on Ramsey and if there are any more injuries. I can afford to get Silva (or Fabregas) for him now, just thinking about the next 2 fixtures I guess.
Init,
It would be Lamela out for Henderson which I think is a reasonable trade to allow Keane of Burnley to become either of the Everton lads.
Think that’s worth it then GP. Hendo could be the best budget midfielder this year if he continues his progress. He’s developing into a box to box player as per Ramsey in my opinion. Very impressed with him so far. The trade up to Baineman 😉 too makes it worth it.
Cheers Init,
Does look quite an attractive move this evening.