Fantasy Premier League Captain Picks Gameweek 5

Fantasy Premier League Captain Picks Gameweek 5

Welcome to Fantasy Premier League Captain Picks Gameweek 5. Choosing your captain should be one of the most exciting parts of playing fantasy football really: the way of saying “ha! Called it! My team has the biggest names in the game and it sh*ts on your feeble squad” to your mini-league opponents.

That sense of superiority is hard to impose when you’ve just scored, erm, around 17 points (maybe a little less…) in the previous gameweek though. Last weekend was horrific for many of us and probably left our opponents — the casuals among us, such as those at work, who have the likes of Clyne and Rooney in their squads — feeling rather smug.

Well, smug they shall be no more! Oh no. This is Gameweek 5 and, thankfully, it’s unrelated to the previous mess of a gameweek. Hopefully they’re not even distant cousins. Last gameweek saw most opting for Hazard — he *seemed* to be the perfect choice — whereas this one holds a variety of very promising options. So let’s begin! Along the way, perhaps have a beer whilst deciding who your #1 pick is, safe in the knowledge that, ultimately, you’ll beat all those clueless workmates regardless.

Raheem Sterling – home vs Bournemouth
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[/three_fifth]Words work wonders: “…as long as you work for me, I’ll fight for you” said Pep’s alleged text to Raheem during the Euros recently. I wonder what Pochettino says to Kane over the summer? Something like “play as abysmally as you did for England in the first few matches please Harry! That way no clubs will come knocking” seems likely.

Anyway, the confident Sterling who we once knew at Liverpool is back, and he’s been excellent so far. Almost playing at such a high level, in fact, that you’d think he was a young English player. Strange. Even on an off-day, with Kevin de Bruyne and Nolito around him, chances and points look likely to fall his way.

Bournemouth’s defence has looked reasonable so far, but on the opening weekend they conceded 3 to Man United, and that was at home… numerous teams have crumbled when making the trip to the Etihad in recent years. Last season, actually, this fixture marked my first game that I’d watched there: the memory of Sterling’s first-half hat-trick hasn’t faded much! Any takers here will be laughing if he can repeat such a performance.

Form: 7

Fixture: 8

Explosiveness: 7

Zlatan Ibrahimovic – away vs Watford
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[/three_fifth]Now that Aguero’s (el)bowed out of the FPL scene for a while, the market shares have risen even further in Ibra’s favour, making him the go-to ‘safe’ option for this weekend.

Sitting pretty in well over 60% of FPL teams, the big man poses an additional threat, one of pure fear: there will surely be in excess of 1,000,000 managers who choose to captain him and, if you don’t, well… ‘playing with fire’ doesn’t quite cut it.

However, that shouldn’t be the only reason to captain him, of course. It isn’t. He’s the joint-top Premier League scorer thus far, playing 90 minutes every game, on penalties and scores from half-chances that everybody else on this list would probably miss. Just look at how he got over that loose ball to score in the derby on Saturday! Be wary.

Form: 8

Fixture: 7

Explosiveness: 8

Eden Hazard – home vs Liverpool
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[/three_fifth]Liverpool just leak goals, especially away home, with 5 conceded in 2 games: they rarely score alone. Sorry. That said, they did (almost) keep Leicester at bay, but Ranieri’s men looked out of sorts last weekend.

So, with that said, the prospect of a Chelsea-player captain sounds decent. The question is: which one? You’ll see that I’ve opted for the skilful midget over the savage oaf. Costa may be in better form, but he has less discipline than the lovechild of Sam Allardyce and Rafa Benitez, so doesn’t lend himself to bonus points: a solitary goal will probably result in a 5-point haul instead of 8 or 9 from your average FPL striker. Hazard, on the other hand, only needs a goal to almost guarantee himself around 10 points. Penalty duty really helps him here too.

Chelsea may have dropped points but, back at The Bridge, you’d fancy Conte to inspire them back to winning ways. Eden can been very influential and it wouldn’t be surprising to see him continue his excellent home form: a goal and 3 BPs in both games to date.

Form: 7

Fixture: 6

Explosiveness: 7

Alexis Sanchez – away vs Hull
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[/three_fifth]It feels like a long time ago since Sanchez obliterated Watford in the first half when they met at Vicarage Road… not much has changed though. After frustrating his owners with a cameo appearance against Southampton — purely due to returning late from his duties with Chile — he’ll be ready to give Hull a similarly turbulent experience.

Admittedly, so far Hull have been solid, and haven’t conceded more than a single goal in any of their games yet. Phelan won’t make this easy for Arsenal, especially on their turf.

Alexis is what I’d call an ‘explosive’ player though: he can produce magic when it’s least expected. His hat-trick against Leicester last season springs to mind. Don’t be surprised if Sanchez is the first player to truly dismantle Hull when they play (at the ‘KCOM Stadium’? Eh? Explains why I didn’t know their ground’s name!) on Saturday.

Form: 6

Fixture: 8

Explosiveness: 9

Harry Kane – home vs Sunderland
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[/three_fifth]With most of us buying Costa or Lukaku to replace Aguero, this man probably doesn’t sit in many teams, which makes this proposition even tastier for those that do. Yes, earlier I mocked him for being a slow starter, but he got off the mark last weekend in Spurs’ 4-0 win over Stoke; things are starting to simmer nicely for Kane.

The most important factor — even more so than their juicy fixture this gameweek — is the return of Dembele from suspension. Dembele started 27 games for Spurs last season and, as you may well know, in 24 of those Kane scored. The other 11 games? Just one goal for Kane… keep your eyes peeled on Sunday afternoon.

Brace inbound? You’d have to think so.

Form: 4

Fixture: 9

Explosiveness: 7

Romelu Lukaku – home vs Middlesbrough
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[/three_fifth]FPL’s biggest troll is back. After 13 league matches without scoring, Rom returned to his frustrating best at Sunderland on Monday evening as he missed a couple of glaring chances before notching a second half hat-trick. Impressive you would think and with Kun out for another week then many will be looking to fill that spot for one week after seeing the damage that not owning Costa or Lukaku did to them last week.

Now we all know that Lukaku does what Lukaku does best – notch a couple of goals and gets everyone’s attention to the point where they buy him. And then of course he misses chance after chance and trolls his owners. We also know though that Big Rom can be a streaky striker, going on a run of games, scoring for fun before then going quiet and frustrating the hell out of his owners.

So which Rom do we have here? Well, only time will tell of course – you can bet that Boro will defend and mark him better than Sunderland did (or didn’t do) on Monday, but with 5 goals in his last two games (for Everton & Belgium) the form and fixture combo is very much on his side.

Form: 8

Fixture: 9

Explosiveness: 7

Bonus

There are so many options for this round… if you’re still reading, unsatisfied, please allow me to redirect you to some other ‘nearly made it’ or ‘differential’ captains:

* Payet, were it not for him facing a stern West Brom defence away from home, would’ve been right up there for me. He looked sharp against Watford… and what a rabona!

* Tadic — with penalty and free-kick duties — his is looking creative and has a decent home fixture this gameweek.

* Finally, a familiar name in Benteke has now emerged onto the FPL scene at Palace, just in time to play a Stoke team who have conceded 10 goals already!

Thanks for reading Fantasy Premier League Captain Picks Gameweek 5. This article was written by jamesimmo

Follow @James777Simpson

Fixture Tracker – the next 6 games