FANTASY FORECAST 2019/20: FPL Gameweek 2

Ahead of each Gameweek in the Fantasy Premier League, The Hype Train's three front-men, Robert Austin, Sam Austin and Phil Jones, duel for FPL supremacy in predicting Premier League scores, as well as going head to head in picking a Scout Picks squad for each round of games. In addition, we provide general insight that we believe might be relevant for FPL players, such as our personal captaincy picks, differentials for the week, and more. Welcome to the Forecast. All aboard.

Fantasy Premier League: Gameweek 2 Deadline

For the 2019/20 Premier League season, the FPL deadline will be one hour before the commencement of the week's first game. Our website provides a real-world countdown timer for the the upcoming Gameweek, whilst you can read our latest Fantasy articles from the season on our 2019/20 FPL weekly hype sub-section.

How does our Forecasting work?

For three years we invited guests from the FPL Community to tackle us with picks for the upcoming Gameweek in Fantasy Premier League. We'll be taking a break from inviting guests onto this article for a year, and have introduced a new feature, Fantasy 5's, which we'll be asking weekly guests their top pick in each position ahead of each Gameweek.

For the sake of respecting the rules of the Forecast, we have provided an example of what we're sending out to interested parties that will feature throughout the season.

Premier League Fixture Prediction: As pundits, we are testing our football acumen with PL predictions and will be providing regular updated tables and stats in each edition of the FPL Forecast. A perfect score is worth 3 points whilst a correct result is worth 1 point.
FPL Gameweek Forecasting: Answering the regular questions that come up every single week in the Fantasy Premier League community that helps with identifying captaincy picks, transfers, attacking options, clean sheet potential, teams to look our for and avoid, players to consider for the Draft game, the wildcard differential players, as well as general analysis and comments.
Scout Picks: Picking a squad of 15 for a single Gameweek, without any budget, using the rules of the FPL - formations, captains and vice captains, and the player limits of 3 per club (chips will not be feature of these weekly picks)
Each team must pick a Captain, labelled as (c) and a Vice Captain listed as (vc).

Fixture Prediction: Gameweek 2

Arsenal 2-1 Burnley

Aston Villa 1-1 Bournemouth

Brighton 2-1 West Ham

Everton 2-0 Watford

Norwich 0-1 Newcastle

Southampton 0-3 Liverpool

Man City 1-1 Spurs

Sheffield United 2-0 Crystal Palace

Chelsea 1-1 Leicester

Wolves 1-2 Man United

FPL Forecasting: Gameweek 2

Top FPL transfer targets for the weekend:

Adrian (LIV) - A £4.5mil goalkeeper who is hot off the heels of being the hero in the Super Cup is a great pick for the Gameweek... Though, you'll have to trust that his injury isn't serious.

Ederson (MCI) – A like for like replacement for Alisson owners.

Marcus Rashford (MUN) – The Red Devils face a side who are fresh out of a Europa League game, and after they were impressive against Chelsea, you’d like to think they could use their momentum to avenge last seasons result against Wolves. Rashford was the most impressive player on the pitch.

Who are the teams to look out for and avoid?:

Man City: Avoid. This will be one of their toughest fixtures of the season for City, and after the merry-go-round of chaos during their two-legged clash in the knockout phase of the Champions League you can’t rule Spurs out of making a big upset in this fixture.

Brighton: Embrace. The Seagulls absolutely deserved their win against a clueless Hornets in the opening gameweek of the season. A lot of people had underestimated Graham Potter’s team, and right now I would be very worried if I was the West Ham defence that got rolled over by Man City.

Sheffield United: Embrace. After a resolute performance against Bournemouth, another surprise performance was from the newly promoted side who drew level in dramatic fashion. Their visitors this week are Crystal Palace who incapable of scoring against Everton. This is a huge opportunity to stake a claim in the league for the Blades first home game of the season.

FPL Captaincy Picks:

(C) – Mohamad Salah (LIV): The Reds are coming off the back of winning the UEFA Super Cup, which should give the team a huge boost against their academy side this weekend.

(VC) – Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang (ARS): Normally I go for Kane to vice Salah, but Spurs have a tough fixture against City to navigate. Arsenal, however, host Burnley. The Gunners can break down defensive teams on home soil which is a safe bet for the week.

FPL Scout Picks: Gameweek 2

Formation: 3-4-3

Starting 11

GK: Jordan Pickford (EVE)

DEF: Lucas Digne (EVE)

DEF: Virgil van Dijk (LIV)

DEF: Enda Stevens (SHU)

MID: Raheem Sterling (MCI)

MID: Mohamad Salah (LIV) - (C)

MID: Gylfi Sigurdsson (EVE)

MID: Pedro (CHE)

FOR: Pierre Emerick-Aubameyang (ARS) - (VC)

FOR: Roberto Firmino (LIV)

FOR: Marcus Rashford (MUN)

Substitutes

GK: Ederson (MCI)

MID: John McGinn (AVL)

DEF: John Lundstram (SHU)

DEF: John Stones (MCI)

Fixture Prediction: Gameweek 2 Arsenal 3-1 Burnley Aston Villa 2-3 Bournemouth Brighton 1-0 West Ham Everton 2-0 Watford Norwich 2-1 Newcastle Southampton 1-4 Liverpool Man City 2-1 Spurs Sheffield United 0-0 Crystal Palace Chelsea 2-0 Leicester Wolves 2-1 Man United

FPL Forecasting: Gameweek 2

Top FPL transfer targets for the weekend: Mount, Pulisic, Pepe, Pukki and Wolves in general.

Who are the teams to look out for and avoid?: Watch: Chelsea – team is still figuring themselves out. Mount, Pulisic and Emerson looking strong so far.

Avoid: Man Utd – the first bandwagon of the season. For people who didn’t watch the game last weekend, United played poorly for most of the game. Wolves are a solid team throughout and won’t make the same errors Chelsea did.

FPL Captaincy Picks: (C) – Mo Salah (VC) – Callum Wilson

FPL Scout Picks: Gameweek 2 Formation: 4-4-2

Starting 11

GK: Jordan Pickford

DEF: Andrew Robertson DEF: Emerson DEF: Lucas Digne DEF: Patrick Van Aanholt

MID: Mo Salah (C) MID: Raheem Sterling MID: Bernardo Silva MID: Sadio Mane

FOR: Callum Wilson (VC) FOR: P. E. Aubameyang

Substitutes

GK: Mat Ryan FOR: Teemu Pukki MID: Christian Pulisic DEF: Shane Duffy

Fixture Prediction: Gameweek 2

Arsenal 2-0 Burnley

Aston Villa 1-2 Bournemouth

Brighton 1-0 West Ham

Everton 2-0 Watford

Norwich 2-0 Newcastle

Southampton 0-3 Liverpool

Man City 2-1 Spurs

Sheffield United 1-1 Crystal Palace

Chelsea 3-2 Leicester

Wolves 1-1 Man United

FPL Forecasting: Gameweek 2

Top FPL transfer targets for the weekend:

Anthony Martial (MUN) - A midfielder playing as a central Forward? Sign me up.

Ederson (MCI) – Alisson out, Ederson in. It is the right move.

Teemu Pukki (NOR) - A good one-week option against my beloved Newcastle.

Who are the teams to look out for and avoid?:

Norwich: As a lifelong Newcastle fan, you can almost sense the score for the upcoming weekend. I pinned our 1-0 defeat to Arsenal and I can see a slightly heavier defeat to Norwich. Newcastle always travel to newly-promoted sides during Gameweek 2. Not only have we not scored, we haven't won either (1-0 loss to Huddersfield, and a 0-0 to Cardiff).

Wolves: With a Europa League journey on the way, I'm not sure how they'll line up throughout the season with a strong squad. It might impact on their results, so tread lightly for now.

Arsenal: The best go-to options this week for a good home game.

Chelsea & Leicester: If you think you know what will happen in this game, then you've gone in to the future. The hardest game to call this weekend, by a long mile, though I'd lean in Chelsea's favour with a home fixture.

FPL Captaincy Picks:

(C) – Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang (ARS): With City playing Spurs, and Liverpool playing in the Super Cup, the default captaincy role falls to Auba's home game against Burnley.

(VC) – Mohamad Salah (LIV): Played 120 minutes in Istanbul in the Super Cup win, though that shouldn't stop Mo from producing the goods at an expansive Southampton team.

FPL Scout Picks: Gameweek 2

Formation: 3-4-3

Starting 11

GK: Ederson (MCI)

DEF: Lucas Digne (EVE)

DEF: Virgil van Dijk (LIV)

DEF: Trent Alexander-Arnold (LIV)

MID: Raheem Sterling (MCI)

MID: Mohamad Salah (LIV) - (VC)

MID: Gylfi Sigurdsson (EVE)

MID: Anthony Martial (MUN)

FOR: Pierre Emerick-Aubameyang (ARS) - (C)

FOR: Teemu Pukki (NOR)

FOR: Callum Wilson (BOU)

Substitutes

GK: Tim Krul (NOR)

MID: Wilfried Zaha (CRY)

DEF: Enda Stevens (SHU)

DEF: Lewis Dunk (BHA)

Want to know more about The Hype Train?

The Hype Train is an entertainment website founded in 2015, specialising in Fantasy sports reporting, starting with Fantasy Premier League (FPL), before expanding to MLS Fantasy coverage in 2018.

We pride ourselves in providing beautiful graphics, statistics, in-depth analytical reporting and free weekly insight for hopeful players attempting to climb rankings tables. We are also occasional media reviewers, with a keen interest to review games, live sport, and professional wrestling.

In 2019, Hype Train Football Club was formed, becoming the first Fantasy Football website to take to the field. HTFC is a socially active team across social and web channels, providing regular match highlights, match reports, comprehensive player statistics and unique player profiles.

The Hype Train were nominated and shortlisted for the 'Best Football Blog' in 2016 by the Football Bloggers Association at their annual Football Blogging Awards (The FBA's), and were again shortlisted as a finalist in 2019 in the 'Best Fantasy Football Blog' category.

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