Captaincy Picks 2019/20: FPL Gameweek 7
Picking the right captain in FPL can make or break your season and has a massive impact on your final overall rank come the end of the season. We attempt to ease the burden of any potential captaincy stress by offering a host of worthy selections ahead of each Gameweek - an Essential that is voted by the FPL Community, an alternative of our choosing, a Dark Horse who might spring a surprise, and a lowly selected Differential - to cover the bases. 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.
CAPTAINCY HYPE: THE ESSENTIAL PICK
Our Essential picks for captain are selected each and every week on our main Twitter account, @RealHypeTrain, with four highly selected FPL options battling it out for alpha status amongst fellow FPL players.
Gameweek 7: Essential Captain
Player: Mohamed Salah (LIV)
Position: Midfielder
Fixture: Sheffield United (A)
Player Price: £12.5 million
Player Selection %: 42.3%
Captaincy poll results:
Reason for victory:
After enduring 3 weeks of essential captaincy misery with Raheem Sterling at the helm, a sense of normality has returned this weekend with The Egyptian King, Mohamed Salah, resuming his responsibilities as the head captaincy honcho ahead of a trip to Sheffield United to open Gameweek 7.
Salah's minority poll victory saw the £12.5m midfielder see of major competition from Chelsea's Tammy Abraham, a player we included just to fill the numbers on the poll. Sheffield boss, Chris Wilder, has indicated that his side will be fielding a 'back 10' against The Reds tomorrow lunchtime, though that shouldn't dissuade from a consistent FPL performer earning the armband.
Salah is 1 of 4 players to reach 50+ points this season, boasts 4 goals and 3 assists in a team that has won 6 consecutive Premier League, will be on penalty kick duty as James Milner looks nowhere near the starting squad and will be the main man your friends and mini-league rivals will be banking on in mass.
The only downside is that Salah's only provided 2 assists on the road in 3 matches, with 5 of Salah's 7 attacking returns coming at Anfield, but with a promising away day on the cards, we wouldn't think too much about away-day implications with this one due to Salah's general ability and high-level of performance this season.
CAPTAINCY HYPE: THE ALTERNATIVE PICK
Our Alternative selection for captain typically commands a smaller FPL ownership percentage than our Essential poll winner, though this pick is usually reserved for The Hype Train's own gut instincts on who could be captaincy inspiration for the upcoming Gameweek.
Gameweek 7: Alternative Captain
Player: Tammy Abraham (CHE)
Position: Forward
Fixture: Brighton (H)
Player Price: £7.5 million +
Player Selection %: 33.7%
Reason for selection:
We're not so naive to leave out in-form Tammy Abraham this week, with our captaincy poll suggesting that the Forward will likely be a true alternative to the City and Liverpool players, with The Blues now embarking on a run of superb Premier League fixtures.
Chelsea's irresistible fixture list:
GW7: Brighton (H)
GW8: Southampton (A)
GW9: Newcastle (H)
GW10: Burnley (A)
GW11: Watford (A)
GW12: Crystal Palace (H)
Only Sergio Aguero (8) has more goals than Abraham (7) and with Aguero, Sterling, Salah and Mane all away from home, Chelsea take on a heightened sense of responsibility and even though Brighton pose a defensive strength, Tammy will be least be the Vice Captain and even though we are sceptical that the official game has been flaunting his attributes (as they curse everything they touch), Abraham looks to be an essential option that might be pivotal to a good Gameweek.
The only stumbling block for Abraham is the certain rotation he faces. The Englishman has either been a sub, or been subbed off, in all 6 league appearances this season and has blanked in half of his games this season. These are first world problems though with a player who has seen his valuation rocket by £0.5m this season and looks a certain starter for a Chelsea team that will score a lot of goals this season.
CAPTAINCY HYPE: THE DARK HORSE PICK
A new captaincy selection this season sees us introduce a Dark Horse pick, which will be a player who typically has a good scoring record against an opposing team, or a player in good form that is being overlooked due to other popular captaincy picks.
Gameweek 7: Dark Horse Captain
Player: Jamie Vardy (LEI)
Position: Forward
Fixture: Newcastle (H)
Player Price: £8.9 million
Player Selection %: 8.6%
Reason for selection:
Our dark horse pick this week takes place in a fixture that logic has historically avoided in the past, with Leicester hosting Newcastle in the evening game on Saturday.
The Toon have won their previous 2 visits to Leicester, with Ayoze Perez scoring in both victories during the 2017/18 and 2018/19 campaigns. Now with Perez on the side side of the fence with the Foxes, and the variables of history changing, with Rafa Benitez gone at Newcastle, could we see a reversal of fortunes?
As a Newcastle fan writing these words, there is a little trepidation surrounding this fixture... What happens if we lose and scramble looking for points against a side that we've surprised in the last couple of years? It'll be daunting for us, and joyous for a Leicester side who have started well enough to have some pundits and fans alike talking about the possibility of Brendan Rodgers taking The Foxes in to the Champions League place this season.
Leicester have a good run of fixtures on their hands and in Jamie Vardy, has a Forward who has grown accustom to scoring against middle of the pack sides, and we can envision another big performance that matches Vardy's Gameweek 4 haul of 16 points against Bournemouth.
What you need to weigh up if you're crazy enough, is whether Newcastle will continue to pose a real threat to a side like Leicester, given that current circumstances between the sides are shifting in opposite directions and whether it is worth a gamble. What's not a gamble though is Vardy being the man to profit in case Leicester score big this weekend and continue to tease a run that could take them back in to European football next season.
CAPTAINCY HYPE: THE DIFFERENTIAL PICK
Our Wildcard selection is one of the ten differential picks that is featured in our Weekly Wildcard Differentials article. This captaincy selection has a very small percentage of owners in the FPL, and is our left-field option.
Gameweek 7: Differential Captain
Player: Ricardo Pereira (LEI)
Position: Defender
Fixture: Newcastle (H)
Player Price: £6.0 million
Player Selection %: 6.2%
Reason for selection:
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.
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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.
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All aboard.
