Captains Picks Gameweek 5

Fantasy Football Captains Picks Gameweek 5

23.93%. That’s almost a quarter. (Grade A, GCSE Maths.) That’s how many voters in last week’s FF247 poll said they planned to captain Raheem Sterling. And that’s without including the 8 jokers that “said” they were going to captain Dwight Gayle.
If we extrapolate that % out across the entire FPL population, that’s a whopping 773,435 people trusting the armband to young Raheem. That’s roughly the same number of people that live in Leeds, Marseille, Hamamatsu (Japan – for Bry), or my very own Fort Worth, TX.
Or to put it another way, that’s the minimum number of Christmas cards that Brendan Rodgers won’t be receiving this year.
2 measly points. Two. From a captain. Pathetic.
Anyway. Let’s pretend for a moment that not everyone will be captaining Costa every week from now on, and take a look at what we can expect from the GW5 crop of chancers…

West Ham vs LIVERPOOL
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[/three_fourth]In a crazy world where Liverpool actually start their best players, this could be a fairly routine win for the Reds. West Ham have lost both of their 2 home games so far this season (0-1 vs Spurs, and 1-3 vs Southampton) and have been far from convincing at the back. Liverpool on the other hand, followed up their defeat at Man City with a convincing 3-0 win away against Spurs.
Despite last week’s blip against Villa, I still think the best attacking threat is likely to come from Liverpool’s Raheem Sterling (2 goals and an assist in the 3 games he’s started), although Mad Mario has to explode onto the scene at some point.
Interesting and potentially irrelevant fact time – last season, Liverpool were awarded more penalties (12) than any other team. 9 of those were awarded away from Anfield. West Ham conceded the second most spot kicks in the league. Last year’s West Ham vs Liverpool fixture was settled by 2 Liverpool penalties. Stevie G differential captain pick anyone?
A quick note of caution before we move on is to point out that the Champions League kicks off this week. For the first time in a while, Liverpool are back involved, so keep an eye on Friday’s pressers for any talk of injures / tired players / rotation.

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Leicester vs Manchester United
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[/three_fourth]Despite the 4-0 thrashing of ‘Arry’s boys, I’m still not 100% sure that Utd have turned the corner after their far from convincing opening 3 performances. A match up this week against another of the newly promoted teams might not be a chance to test that theory, but it may well be another chance to bag a few fantasy points. Leicester won’t be a push over though. They’ve already notched draws at home against Everton and Arsenal and will be high on confidence after last weekend’s 1-0 away win at Stoke.
As with the Liverpool game, I suggest you keep an eye on Man Utd’s Friday presser. Not to monitor the after effects of Champions league football, obviously. More to see if we’re given any clues how Utd’s front 5 might line up. For now at least, I suggest you take your pick from either Rooney (2 goals, 1 assist, 1bp) or Di Maria (1 goal, 1 assist, 3bps). Yes, Falcao looked hungry for a goal when he came on against QPR, but we’re yet to see if LVG considers him ready to start. Mata might only get an hour to impress (again) and RVP is yet to register a goal or assist in 3 appearances.

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SPURS vs West Brom
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[/three_fourth]To captain a Spurs player takes a special sort of commitment. Commitment / blind faith. Definitely one of those. To actually recommend that someone else captains a Tottenham player takes that special sort of desperation you only find in authors that have already ran out of genuine recommendations to make, and is now hoping that no one is actually reading this too closely, and definitely hoping that no one is actually going to follow their advice. Anyway, if you are going to take the plunge on a member of the most inconsistent of performers, then maybe this week is the week to choose.
West Brom haven’t scored a goal in their last 3 games and sit joint bottom of the league. They even conceded a goal to Lee Cattermole!
Adebarndoor has locked down the central striker role so far this season at Spurs and has looked lively (by his standards at least). A goal and two assists already this season is a decent start for the confidence player.

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EVERTON vs Crystal Palace
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[/three_fourth]A little bit out there, but my tip for an absolute goals/points fest comes in Sundays 4pm kick off at Goodison Park.
Everton have scored 9 goals and conceded 10 (most in the Prem) in their opening 4 games. (Yes, six of those came in one game against Chelsea, but hear me out). Palace have conceded 8 goals over the same period. Including shipping 3 against Championship-bound Newcastle. I smell goals. Lots of them. Maybe even a repeat of last season’s 5 goals thriller. (3-2 Palace win).
It would take immense bravery / stupidity / a Friday night on the Stella, and there is a good chance you will be laughed at, but as we learned last week, there are no certainties in this game. How about Mirallas (2 goals in his last 2 games), Naismith (3 goals in 4 games), or Lukaku (off the mark last weekend) for captains’ choice this week?

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Best of the rest:
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[/three_fourth]Costa and Ivanovic (away to Man City). Neither needs much justifying, and both could have featured in the main article. The slight downgrade on their recommendation is due to the strength of their opposition. However, Costa is on a run of 7 goals in his last 4 games and will, no doubt, be the popular choice for the nervous managers who missed out on him last weekend. Ivanovic has found the net twice already this season (plus 1 assist) and scored the winner in a 1-0 Chelsea win at the Etihad last season.
Aguero (home to Chelsea). As long as he doesn’t play the full 90 minutes, he should get you a goal at least. Strange but true. The 90 minutes he played against Stoke was the only game in 4 appearances in which he didn’t score. (Other appearances in which he did score lasted 6, 23, and 66 mins).
Dier and Eriksen (home to West Brom). It goes against traditional captaining criteria, but Dier has looked a real goal threat on set pieces this season and this must represent as good a chance of 4 clean sheet points as you will get. I can’t bring myself to back either of Lamela or Chadli, so I’m suggesting Eriksen could be a good bet to add to his goal and 3bps from last weekend. (He also scored a peach of a freekick last time these sides met.)
Sanchez (away to Villa). If it wasn’t for Arsenal’s phenomenal record at Villa Park (not lost since 1998), I could just have easy been recommending Weimann and Agbonlahor in this section. In fact, balls to it. Why not. The Villans are on a fine run of form and this could be a close game. If you’re struggling for options, then you could do worse than captain one of the three chaps mentioned here. All of them have scored well this season already.

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And finally…. I liked GP’s approach last week of the author putting their money where their mouth is, so I’ll keep it going with a Red, Amber, Green of my own…
RED (Take a wild punt if you have him) – Kevin Mirallas
AMBER (Proceed with caution) – Christian Eriksen
GREEN (If you have him, armband him) – Wayne Rooney

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 chins and bellies

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