Fantasy Forecast 2019/20: FPL Gameweek 27
Ahead of each Gameweek in the Fantasy Premier League, The Hype Train's three front-men, Robert Austin and Sam Austin, 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 27 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 27
Chelsea 2-1 Spurs
Burnley 2-1 Bournemouth
Crystal Palace 1-1 Newcastle
Sheffield United 1-0 Brighton
Southampton 2-1 Aston Villa
Leicester 3-1 Man City
Man United 2-0 Watford
Wolves 2-0 Norwich
Arsenal 1-1 Everton
Liverpool 3-0 West Ham
FPL Forecasting: Gameweek 27
Top FPL transfer targets for the Gameweek:
GK: Rui Patricio (WOL, GK, £5.1mil, 8.8% ownership)
DEF: Joe Gomez (LIV, DEF, £5.3mil, 5.3% ownership)
MID: Anthony Martial (MUN, MID, £7.9mil, 11.6% ownership)
FWD: Danny Ings (SOU, FWD, £7.1mil, 30.8% ownership)
Who are the teams to look out for and avoid?:
Man United (Watch): After having luck on their side in an away win over Chelsea, they have a great fixture at home against Watford that hopefully offers a little bit of everything. Anthony Martial is the obvious pick, and Bruno Fernandes the best differential from this game.
Southampton (Watch): Southampton have the fixtures on their side, and they also have a front runner for the Premier League Golden Boot. Aston Villa can’t buy a win and I can see this being a landmark game for the Saints in their survival hopes.
Man City (Avoid): I’ll put this in plain English…Man City deserve nothing. I have been saying it for years that they are a bunch of cheats who were unworthy of their successes, and they are now officially that. They get a big L from me this week, also because they are up against a team who can leapfrog them in the table who can beat them. I can see Jamie Vardy getting back in form to make things go from worse to worse for City.
Arsenal (Avoid): Everton have picked up the third most amount of points in the league since Ancelloti joined the Toffees, and Arsenal have been draw merchants this season at the Emirates. I think there is a deception that after the 4-0 win over Newcastle that people will be lured into a false sense of security over the Arsenal defence. I’m not.
FPL Captaincy Picks:
(C) – Mohamad Salah (LIV): A few weeks ago Liverpool beat West Ham 2-0 at the London Stadium. The Egyptian King scored and assisted in that win, and a home fixture should see a similar return. Liverpool have gone undefeated against West Ham in their last seven games, and at this point of the season are you going to keep doubting a team five games from winning the title?
(VC) – Raul Jimenez (WOL): The Mexican is a proven option, in the second most enticing fixture this Gameweek. Norwich at home should be a comfortable win as the Canary’s survival hopes are getting less likely by the week. Raul is the no-brainer behind a Liverpool player this week.
FPL Scout Picks: Gameweek 27
Formation: 3-4-3
Starting 11
GK: Rui Patricio (WOL)
DEF: Trent Alexander-Arnold (LIV)
DEF: Virgil van Dijk (LIV)
DEF: George Baldock (SHU)
MID: Anthony Martial (MUN)
MID: Wilfried Zaha (CRY)
MID: Nicolas Pepe (ARS)
MID: Mohamad Salah (LIV) - (C)
FOR: Danny Ings (SOU)
FOR: Raul Jimenez (WOL) - (VC)
FOR: Jamie Vardy (LEI)
Substitutes
GK: Vincente Guaita (CRY)
MID: Adama Traoré (WOL)
DEF: Harry Maguire (MUN)
DEF: Ben Mee (BUR)
Fixture Prediction: Gameweek 27
Chelsea 1-1 Spurs
Burnley 2-1 Bournemouth
Crystal Palace 0-0 Newcastle
Sheffield United 1-0 Brighton
Southampton 2-1 Aston Villa
Leicester 3-2 Man City
Man United 2-1 Watford
Wolves 2-0 Norwich
Arsenal 3-1 Everton
Liverpool 2-0 West Ham
FPL Forecasting: Gameweek 27
Top FPL transfer targets for the Gameweek:
Adama Traore was rested last week and should put Norwich to the sword this weekend and was my personal transfer in. We’ve hit a stage of the season where all of the essential targets come from a small pool of players, so as such you shouldn’t be surprised to be a small syndicate of names appear… Wish we had other names to consider other than the likes of Ings and Jimenez, but that’s just where we’re at this season.
As a Newcastle fan, the temptation of Jamaal Lascelles (£4.3m) is strong, though I’m not sure a double-up with Martin Dubravka is a wise idea, especially after watching the Magpies get mauled in the second-half against Arsenal last Sunday.
Who are the teams to look out for and avoid?:
Man United (watch): Odion Ighalo is lining up against Watford. Surely there’s a goal in the works for the Nigerian should he be involved.
Crystal Palace / Newcastle (watch): Defensively, this is a goldmine featuring a couple of sides that struggle for goals. If this game had to edge one way, Palace will win this as Newcastle don’t often travel well to the capital.
Man City (avoid): Rotation will be rife this week as City prepare for their mammoth Champions League encounter with Real Madrid. This should give Leicester, who are chasing a UCL spot of their own, a theoretical edge in this encounter – the only flaw to this logic is that Jamie Vardy is out of form.
Wolves and Southampton (Watch): They’re the ones this week that are playing basement sides in the Premier League. Owners of Jimenez and Ings will be very happy leading in to the Gameweek.
Chelsea / Spurs (avoid): Son Heung-Min’s injured, Chelsea look defensively frail and both sides are largely unpredictable. Combine this with the early fixture on Saturday and it all equates to both sides, who are fiercely locked in a Champions League qualification battle for next season, will probably cancel one another out.
Elsewhere: There looks to be routine wins on the cards for Liverpool at home to West Ham and a Sheffield United side that welcome Brighton. Arsenal are also very good at turning ‘it’ on in the second-half of games and should have enough firepower to see off an Everton side at The Emirates, though both sides are draw merchants.
FPL Captaincy Picks:
(C) – Mohamed Salah (LIV): No point veering off the Salah path right now. West Ham hate playing Liverpool and this looks like the game most FPL players will captain in. I’m no different as the fixtures elsewhere just don’t stack up.
(VC) – Danny Ings (SOU): The main man at Southampton has been consistent all season, scoring 15 goals to date. Defying expectations this campaign, there’s little to doubt that Ings will have another profitable weekend as Aston Villa visit the south coast.
Other Gameweek Comments:
Well, this season has turned into a bit of a grind, hasn’t it? The extended Gameweek 26 highlighted this more than ever. There is no fresh blood or players that are jumping out of the woodwork with amazing form that is making the FPL community turn their heads. It all feels a little stale and that is evident when I sat down to write about my Forecast picks this week. FPL is in a rut and a continuous cycle of picking the same templated players.
I’m not at all complaining because it provides at least some analysis for us to consider at the end of the season, whilst in the interim it makes our picks easy each week, but in the long term we’d like to see some small changes in to the game that inject some life in the game that makes us and millions of others wake up from their Fantasy comas.
My Forecast team below features 9 of my actual players this week, with Martial (ahead of Mahrez) and Auba (ahead of Vardy) as the only changes.
FPL Scout Picks: Gameweek 27
Formation: 3-4-3
Starting 11
GK: Martin Dubravka (NEW)
DEF: Virgil van Dijk (LIV)
DEF: Trent Alexander-Arnold (LIV)
DEF: George Baldock (SHU)
MID: Adama Traore (WOL)
MID: Mohamed Salah (LIV) – (C)
MID: Kevin De Bruyne (MCI)
MID: Anthony Martial (MUN)
FOR: Raul Jimenez (WOL)
FOR: Danny Ings (SOU) – (VC)
FOR: Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang (ARS)
Substitutes
GK: Vicente Guaita (CRY)
MID: John Fleck (SHU)
DEF: Jamaal Lascelles (NEW)
DEF: Jack Stephens (SOU)
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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All aboard.
