Sam Austin

Weekly Differentials 2019/20: FPL Gameweek 7

Ahead of each round of Premier League games The Hype Train analyses the best left-field player options for your Fantasy Premier League teams. Historically, weekly FPL Dream Team’s comprise of mostly differential players whose selection falls with a low selection percentage of overall players, to which there is no doubt that their influence cannot be ignored. With such an abundance of points coming from the FPL’s hidden gems The Hype Train selects one player from each Premier League match in the upcoming Gameweek to decide who could be the differential that sets your team apart. All aboard.

Fantasy Premier League: Gameweek 7 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.

Weekly Differentials (GW7)

The FPL is now getting weirder and weirder, mostly because players can go up and down in price every single day without any reason or logic. Players like Sterling don’t play one game and they go down in value by a cool half-million. Do you know what players don’t go down in price by the new button pressers in the FPL offices? Differentials. The people now in charge of the manual price drops seem to target well owned players, and it appears mostly to amuse each other because they are so bored at the limited game that they currently moderate. We are here with ten names for your consideration for the upcoming Gameweek as per usual, with a surprising name as captain.

Gameweek 7: Differential Picks

SHU/LIV: Adrián (LIV, GK, £4.6mil, 6.7% ownership)

AVL/BUR: John McGinn (AVL, MID, £5.7mil, 7.5% ownership)

BOU/WHU: Harry Wilson (BOU, MID, £6.1mil, 3.7% ownership)

CHE/BHA: Fikayo Tomori (CHE, DEF, £4.5mil, 1.7% ownership)

CRY/NOR: Emiliano Buendía (NOR, MID, £6.0mil, 2.1% ownership)

TOT/SOU: Serge Aurier (TOT, DEF, £5.0mil, 3.0% ownership)

WOL/WAT: Diogo Jota (WOL, FWD, £6.2mil, 4.8% ownership)

EVE/MCI: Nicolás Otamendi (MCI, DEF, £5.5mil, 5.6% ownership)

LEI/NEW: Ricardo Pereira (LEI, DEF, £6.0mil, 6.0% ownership)

MUN/ARS: Nicolas Pépé (ARS, MID, £9.5mil, 3.5% ownership)

GW7: Differential Highlights

Nicolas Pépé (ARS): Boy oh boy, I wonder what Arsenal must be thinking going up against Man United with Aubameyang and Pepe. OGS has been playing Championship football with the Red Devils, and this could be a huge chance for Arsenal to strike when the iron is hot and walk away with three points. After Pepe notched his first Premier League goal last weekend it could be the start of the floodgates opening.

Nicolás Otamendi (MCI): Last week was very interesting as Pep reeled in lots of defensive changes to his team. Watford were that abysmal against the City that he was afforded the chance to rotate his team. One man they are wrapping in cotton wool is their last standing senior central defender, Otamendi. If it is a similar result against Everton the same tactics might be employed again. You can never rule City out of any fixture, especially as Everton have reverted to their patchy form and flimsy defence.

Fikayo Tomori (CHE): One player that has caught out eye is the £4.5mil Tomori who has stepped into the heart of the Chelsea defence with relative ease. Major doubts over Christensen and Rüdiger will mean that Tomori lines up next to Kurt Zouma for Brighton’s visit of Stamford Bridge. You would fancy Chelsea to earn their first clean sheet of the season sooner than later, and against an out-of-form Brighton that is very possible. Tomori has started the last three matches and will continue to do so as the youth project at Chelsea keeps developing.

Key Differential: Ricardo Pereira (LEI)

Yes, you have read that right. For the first time in three weeks a Spurs midfielder is not the differential captain. Hueng-Min Son drastically increased in ownership which ruled him out, but we wanted to vary up the captaincy to not only retain our sanity, but to try something different this week. The baton passes to Ricardo Pereira, who scored against Spurs to win the game last weekend. Leicester are a group of differentials much like Spurs are, and this year they are turning heads for a potential space in this year’ top six under the direction of Brendan Rodgers.

Manchester United are looking vulnerable all over the field, Chelsea don’t have a defence, and Arsenal are still subject to their typical away day performances. Leicester could legitimately do it, after all, they did win the Premier League out of the blue. And yet, this is the team who sold Harry Maguire to Manchester United for a record amount for a defender, and they look healthier without the Englishman in the team.

Brendan Rodgers has now obtained a habit of managing prospect clubs, he did it first with Liverpool and nearly clinched the title in 2013-14, and then moved to Celtic a few years later where the Northern Irishman where he cemented them as a juggernaut in Scotland, and now he is at Leicester where there is no ceiling for how far they can go. Acquiring and nurturing young talent has reaped the rewards, and now they are able to once again prove everyone wrong. Leicester were the greatest differentials in Premier League history after Claudio Ranieri made league legends out of Kante, Mahrez, and Vardy. We find this poignant to speak about to remind you about the DNA of this underdog club, and they certainly have the players to make another huge surprise.

Ricardo Pereira is a very talented right-back, and the eye-test now registers the Portuguese has adapted to the league and now one of Leicester’s best players. Last year he had a great year, and even though we believe the price-tag of £6.0mil was too dear for a Leicester defender, the fact is that there is potential with Pereira and the rest of this team.

Leicester face Newcastle this weekend, and after last season when the Toon rocked up to the King Power and did a hit and run with the three points you would normally be hesitant by trusting the Foxes odds in this match. Well, Rodgers has eliminated a key factor of Newcastle’s supremacy over Leicester…they bought the man who scored the goals against the Foxes, the Spaniard Ayoze Perez. It is very much a case of Leicester’s board were so infuriated with Perez’s goal-scoring antics they couldn’t take the chances on him staying at Newcastle or joining another club. Rafa Benitez has also left Newcastle, the Toon are looking like a different outfit…one that might once again drag them into a relegation race. Steve Bruce is a polarising figure as Toon supporters don’t believe that he is suited to the long-term project at Newcastle.

Quite literally, everything about this fixture has changed. And if Leicester are serious about challenging for the top six, they need to be ending curses like the one Newcastle have over them. Pereira has potential at both ends of the pitch, and it makes good reading on paper to put our trust in the Portuguese this week. Maybe we have gone crazy, or maybe we don’t care about the FPL enough to care. Either way, we will be watching this fixture with a keen eye to see if the gamble pays off.

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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