Fantasy Football Captain Picks Gameweek 27
Welcome to Fantasy Football Captain Picks Gameweek 27
Even Kai Havertz got 14 points…
Poor Kai, a benchmark of failure for the rest. The answer to last week was of course Jarrod Bowen. What it most certainly wasn’t, was Haaland or De Bruyne. Those two are in the bad books. Especially after also flopping in DGW25. Erling is of course the main culprit here, especially as he wore so many people’s TC armband in that one, and even after that we trusted that he would surely rebound spectacularly against Bournemouth? Nope. Which probably left the field open for a few other choices to make their case this week. And then midweek happened…
Init – Erling Haaland vs Man United (H)
It’s fair to say that Tuesday evening probably altered the course of this article. Considerably! And that not all were very best pleased about it… 
Can we now suddenly trust him again? Certainly looks like it, doesn’t it.
The main reason other candidates popped up this week though was that he had looked a bit rusty, and out of all of the potential picks he probably had the most difficult game, on paper. Man United have been showing signs of life again lately, although they do also still have a habit of shooting themselves in the foot, as evidenced at Old Trafford on Saturday.
Erling has also taken quite a liking to them. In three league games he has 5 goals and 3 assists, including a hat-trick in his 1st one and a brace back in October. In fact that 5 is the joint most he has notched against Premier League teams so far.
Oh, and the business end of the season is upon us. And we all know what that usually means…
Matt – Ollie Watkins vs Luton (A)
Yet another price rise for the English striker who is having a phenomenal season that takes him up to £8.9 after starting the season at £8.0. He is the player who has risen the most over the course of the season and you can understand why as he has notched a total of 170 points which is the most of any player in the game. He is owned by 53.7% of managers at the time of writing but I only expect that number to go up even further with the news of Dominic Solanke’s knee injury.
There are only 2 players I have owned since GW1, Ollie Watkins and Bukayo Saka and what players they are. The merits of Saka are discussed elsewhere in this article so you can read it there but Ollie Watkins is another who has really rewarded any managers that have owned him. He is currently having the 2nd best attacking season of his career sitting only behind the 2019/20 season in the Championship with Brentford where he got 26 goals and 3 assists in 49 league games. This season he has 14 goals but a walloping 12 assists in only 26 league games. I think he will continue his form and surpass the attacking returns of 19/20 for his best season ever! Just in time for Euro 2024!
He has an average of 9.8 points over the last 5 games. Due to grabbing 5 goals and 4 assists, 2 double digit hauls, 7 bonus points and now is coming up against a Luton side who are very leaky. This is unreal form and I really would consider him for the armband! Forget about that useless, robotic freak of nature who apparently doesn’t know what the triple captain chip means!!!!!
That stupid blonde just helped Watkins and co. in how to carve up that Luton team and get a monster haul so I suppose I should say thank you for that but it was a different keeper and slightly different spine of the team. Luton are still the third worst defence in the league having shipped 51 goals to their opponents though so there shouldn’t be a massive improvement expected at the weekend. Now the narrative is Luton are better at home and they technically are but I’ve looked at all the fixtures and the tale of the tape is this:
H – 3 wins, 2 draws, 8 losses = 11 pts
A – 2 wins, 3 draws, 6 losses = 9 pts
You can see they got one more win at home, one more draw away but have lost more home games than away. There are only 2 points in the difference and they have played more home games so I wouldn’t be worried too much about the match being at Kenilworth Road. If you feel Watkins is the best option then stick with your gut and captain the best points scorer in the game!
Jamie Mc – Bukayo Saka vs Sheffield United (A)
(Photo by Julian Finney/Getty Images)
*This captain recommendation was written before “The Robot” scored five goals within 58 minutes.
In the history of the Premier League there has been a good few two horse races for the title (Manchester United & Blackburn Rovers / Manchester United & Newcastle United / Manchester United & Arsenal / Manchester United & Chelsea and more recently Manchester City & Liverpool).
As we move towards the business end of the season, I am sure that we all agree that the title run-in consists of three teams; Liverpool & Manchester City & Arsenal.
Arsenal had a difficult Christmas / New Year period with only one point from a possible nine with a draw at Anfield followed by defeats at home to West Ham and away at Fulham.
In 2024, the Gunners have been flawless in the league with six consecutive victories scoring a remarkable twenty-five goals and conceding only three goals.
Arsenal are currently sitting in third place, one point behind Manchester City and a further point behind Liverpool.
If Arsenal are to end their twenty years wait and win the Premier League; then who will be their main man for the remainder of the season???
I present for your captain consideration; Bukayo Saka (£9.2m) with second highest ownership at 64.9%.
Saka currently has 169 points which is second for all players in the game and will surely pass his best points total (202 points) by the seasons end.
Saka has scored thirteen goals which is sixth highest and provided eight assists which is joint eighth highest in the game and has been awarded twenty-three bonus points which is joint third for all players in the game.
On more recent form, Saka has scored seven goals of the above mentioned twenty-five goals.
The man is on form and a points magnet!!!
At the time of writing, 125,530 managers have transferred Saka into their squad with 6,870 managers surprisingly deciding to now go without. Saka has already had a £0.1m price rise this game week and is currently at 22.6% (110,018 further transfers required) in FPL Statistics for a further price rise.
Good luck for the game-week.
The confessional…
This is where we ask our entire writing team to tell us who they think they will pick this week… There are more caveats and get out clauses than a meeting with Daniel Levy but this is their initial gut feeling based upon who they actually own. And they promise that their picks will be allowed to leave for free if a better offer comes along…
The Gallant Pioneer — Saka
Jamesimmo — see Matt (below)
Matt — Norwegian Prick!
Ivan — Saka
DMC —
Loud Atlas — Haaland
Smash — Haaland
Kop — Haaland
Rosco — Robot
Ellefcee — Haaland
Init — Haaland
Gear — Haaland
Stone Frog — Saka
OddDane — Haaland, maybe Palmer
Jamie Mc — Haaland
Peter Pan — Haaland
VOTE ON THIS WEEK’S CAPTAIN POLL GAMEWEEK 27
Thanks for reading Fantasy Football Captain Picks Gameweek 27.
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Urgh. Just checked my GW 29 team – only 4 players. Are people using their FH or writing that GW off and saving the FH for a big DGW?
Most people will have Watkins, Areola, Doughty and Douglas Luiz, so, that is four, likely gotta be a FH that week, but the pickings are poor,
The poor options make me think it’s better to use FH later in the season to max out a DGW
I currently have 7 players. Can get a full squad with a -4
Will use FH on a dgw I think
Good point there, will have to figure out some hits to get to at least a set of 8 a couple of hits in the next two weeks and save up FH for DGW