Sam Austin

Weekly Differentials 2019/20: FPL Gameweek 21

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 21 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 (GW21)

Rotation season is nearly over, and with managers going out of their way to ruin FPL teams over the holiday fixture list, it might be worth looking at some jewelled differentials to give you the edge over the template teams. GW21 is the first game of the year, and just before the return of the FA Cup, and we are back again to provide ten differentials that could get you over the line this New Years Day.

GW21: Differential Highlights

Joe Gomez (LIVERPOOL vs. Sheffield United):

We aren’t going to beat around the bush with Liverpool: their defence is back. Four clean sheets in their last four games has propelled them up the clean sheet tally, with six clean sheets the Reds are now joint second in the rankings and can tie for first at the end of this weekend. Gomez’ return to the starting eleven has enabled this chance of fortune, and at £5.1mil he is an extremely well-priced defender, and with him and Virgil van Dijk the only fit central defenders for Liverpool he is currently rotation proof.

Liverpool beat Sheffield United 1-0 earlier in the season, and right now you wouldn’t back against the team currently 13pts clear at the top of the league table. Additionally, Gomez has only conceded a single goal this season, Teemu Pukki's lone effort at Anfield during Gameweek 1, so there's also that added benefit that the Englishman is a good luck charm, defensively.

Andy Carroll (NEWCASTLE vs. Leicester):

This is a total shot in the dark differential, mostly because the differentials in Leicester’s team have been extinguished. We are opting for Andy Carroll because bizarrely he has been quite a creative influence for the Toon since a return to his hometown club. The target man has three assists from his five games, and with Joelinton injured he is expected to lead the line again. Nobody would see this return coming, so we are banking on a bit of shock and awe in this fixture.

Troy Deeney (WATFORD vs. Wolves):

The only reason we didn’t select Deeney as our differential captain is due to the fixture. Wolves are playing at a high level this year, and they rotated their team at Anfield to keep their best players fit for this match. However, Watford crushed Aston Villa with only ten players, and right now their talisman is Troy Deeney. The Englishmen picked up 12pts against Villa at home, and another 6ts at home against Manchester United. Can he make it three for three at home against Wolves?

Gameweek 21: Differentials

BHA/CHE: Willian (CHE, MID, £7.1mil, 5.5% ownership)

BUR/AVL: Chris Wood (BUR, FWD, £6.2mil, 0.9% ownership)

NEW/LEI: Andy Carroll (NEW, FWD, £5.4mil, 0.1% ownership)

SOU/TOT: Paulo Gazzaniga (TOT, GK, £4.6mil, 4.5% ownership)

WAT/WOL: Troy Deeney (WAT, FWD, £6.2mil, 0.8% ownership)

MCI/EVE: Dominic Calvert-Lewin (EVE, FWD, £5.8mil, 3.2% ownership)

NOR/CRY: Mario Vrancic (NOR, MID, £6.2mil, 0.1% ownership)

WHU/BOU: Lukasz Fabianski (WHU, GK, £4.9mil, 2.2% ownership)

ARS/MUN: Andreas Pereira (MUN, MID, £4.9mil, 0.5% ownership)

LIV/SHU: Joe Gomez (LIV, DEF, £5.1mil, 1.7% ownership)

Key Differential: Dominic Calvert-Lewin (EVE)

We bet you didn’t expect to see Calvert-Lewin as a captaincy option this Gameweek? Well, this is a brand-new year, and a brand-new perspective on Everton with the arrival of Carlo Ancelloti. We still can’t believe Everton landed the coveted Italian manager, and in his first two games there have been two wins for the Toffees against Burnley (GW19) and Newcastle (GW20). Normally we reserve judgement for Everton as they have an instilled tendency to well, completely go off the rails and lose any game possible. Ancelloti is arguably the highest esteemed manager to have taken charge of the Toffees, and for now we are going to hold back our judgement and see how things play out with this stunning managerial appointment.

Meanwhile, Manchester City have had a bit of a chaotic time of late, especially as title rivals Liverpool are currently fourteen points clear at the top of the Premier League summit. City’s usual high standards haven’t been there this season, and as Pep Guardiola bemoans the limited options of a £200mil bench worth of players, Ancelloti is having to make do with what is at his disposal before the January transfer market. The one player that has really outshined all the others in the Everton squad has been that of the young Englishmen, Dominic Calvert-Lewin.

The potential was always there, and there has always been hesitancy over Everton players as FPL options due to, you know, the systematic bouts of collapse Everton can fall prey too. When you look at options for FPL captaincy there must be boxes ticked: team form, player form, opposition form, home or away game, and in general who they play. Plenty of these boxes have been filled, and Everton are in a nice purple patch even before Ancelotti took over.

Just to give you a flavour of this fixture, here are a few stats surrounding this Everton’s trip to the Etihad:

Calvert-Lewin has started and completed 90mins in the last five games.
Calvert-Lewin has five goals in his last five games.
The Englishman has registered seven FPL bonus points in the last five games.
Everton have the second-best form in the entire Premier League with three wins and two draws in their last five games. Only Liverpool have better form right now than their Merseyside neighbour.
Everton have scored in their last six consecutive Premier League away games, the last time they failed to score on the road was during GW8 when they lost 1-0 to Burnley.
Manchester City have the joint most clean sheets this season and have kept four of them at home: Brighton (GW4), Watford (GW6), Aston Villa (GW10), and Sheffield United (GW20).
Everton recorded 29 shots in two games against Burnley and Newcastle since Ancelloti arrived, this is the highest average since the start of the season for the Toffees.
Manchester City only lost one game at home in the 2018-19 season, which was the 3-2 loss in GW18 against Crystal Palace. So far this season they have already lost games which was when Wolves visited the Etihad in GW8, and in GW16 against Manchester United.

Calvert-Lewin has the form, Everton have the form, and City’s form hasn’t been perfect. A differential captain is normally a player who you completely ignore due to the fixture in question, but players in form don’t wait for fixtures to clear up to score, they just ride that wave for as long as they can. This can be the year that Everton finally break their duck at the Etihad, and Ancelloti has a secret weapon that can hopefully penetrate an extremely unconvincing City defence.

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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