Captaincy Picks 2019/20: FPL Gameweek 27
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 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.
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 27: Essential Captain
Player: Mohamed Salah (LIV)
Position: Midfielder
Fixture: West Ham (H)
Player Price: £12.8 million
Player Selection %: 45.0%
Captaincy poll results:
Reason for victory:
The last handful of weeks has seen the FPL Community put all their eggs in the Mohamed Salah basket, with The Egyptian King being the standout captaincy selection since the turn of the new decade. With Gameweek 27 approaching this weekend, featuring a Liverpool home game against West Ham, the status quo won’t be changing anytime soon, with the two-time Premier League Golden Boot winner the only real consideration.
For us, this entire season and the limited choices made available to Fantasy, be it through poor player pricing at the start of the season or a general lack of continued form from more than a handful of players, the 2019/20 season has hit a brick wall. Not just that, we’ve been bashing against its grainy surface for about three to four months at least. Most teams looks the same bar a few differences. Captains are picked from the smallest pool of players. There’s little movement in mini-leagues… Generally, we see that FPL populace take less of an interest in the game, with many people we know not beating the horse to death when it comes to discussing the game, all because the circumstances and sense of déjà vu ahead of each Gameweek has been so similar there’s no longer a need to explain the logic or the reason behind picking certain players, or ribbing members of your football team about their poor selections.
Trying to persist as best we can, watching Liverpool labour in Madrid against a defensively solid Atletico side has certainly not helped matters, with The Reds unable to break Diego Simeone’s defensive structure at the same location Jurgen Klopp’s side lifted the Champions League last season. A goal-shy encounter shouldn’t be on the cards at the weekend though, with David Moyes’s win machine at West Ham rolling up to Anfield this week with the sole purpose of ensuring the club’s goal difference doesn’t take a battering at the champions elect.
In domestic competition, a better state of affairs arise for Salah in particular. The 3 points at Norwich was only Salah’s second blank in 7 games, with The Egyptian managing 53 points in the games surrounding with 5 goals and 2 assists to his name since Gameweek 21. Norwich last week was just a blip given the upward trajectory of Salah’s form, there’s absolutely nothing to suggest that opponents West Ham, who remain in 18th in the Premier League table after a 2-0 loss at Man City, will offer anything in way of a serious threat for The Reds.
We’ll just say what we said last week in regards to Salah, because the message still hasn’t changed. If you know your friends and mini-league rivals will captain The Egyptian, which will probably be the case, then you just have to make a conscious decision whether or not you want to stay on course with the masses or thrown caution to the wind in case Salah blanks. As has been with this season, the captaincy pick might as well be auto-selected this weekend as we enter another week of cruise control.
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 27: Alternative Captain
Player: Danny Ings (SOU)
Position: Forward
Fixture: Aston Villa (H)
Player Price: £7.1 million
Player Selection %: 31.8%
Reason for selection:
If you've coming seeking divine inspiration from the fantasy football lords regarding the best captaincy picks, holding your hands together in deep prayer, you're better off finding divinity in an actual church, as not only is our pick the template vice captaincy choice by the wider masses, Ings isn't going anywhere given Southampton's favourable fixtures.
Southampton's Fixture List:
GW27: Aston Villa (H)
GW28: West Ham (A)
GW29: Newcastle (H)
GW30: Norwich (A)
GW31: Arsenal (H)
GW32: Watford (A)
Ing's goal against Burnley during last weekend's 2-1 home defeat to the travelling Clarets was the Englishman's first goal in 3 matches since Southampton's 2-1 away win at Leicester during Gameweek 22. With the leading man, Jamie Vardy, out of form, there is a genuine chance that Ings could win the Golden Boot this season. Given how the season has transpired, we'd not blink an eye of that very prospect given Ing's quality combined with the European commitments of other leading contenders (Vardy withstanding), opening the door for Ings and The Saints to capitalise in a positive way.
There's no other reason to want to consider Ings other than his general consistency - with the attacker scoring in 14/26 matches this season. Ings scored his only brace against Aston Villa last time out during Gameweek 18's 3-1 win in the Midlands. This weeks opponents? Aston Villa, of course.
We don't offer any far-reaching and ambiguous statistics, or want to cloud the judgement of those of you who take time out of your lives to read our articles. What we know works is raw talent always rises to the top and in Salah and Ings as your sheriff and deputy this week, in theory at least, you're in safe hands.
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 27: Dark Horse Captain
Player: Alexandre Lacazette (ARS)
Position: Forward
Fixture: Everton (H)
Player Price: £9.3 million
Player Selection %: 2.1%
Reason for selection:
Due to becoming crippled by the lack of originality with our above captaincy selections throughout the season, our dark horse pick can sometimes offer creative relief for us as journalists as we get to look at a meaty fixture in the Premier League that might offer Fantasy points that will probably be looked the other way.
With a few heavyweight fixtures involves Leicester hosting Man City during Saturday’s late game, and Chelsea hosting Spurs to begin the Gameweek on Saturday afternoon, there are a potentially a few banana peels ahead of Gameweek 27, whilst there are some interesting games lower down the card, with Burnley hosting a Bournemouth side that will be desperate to get a win before they play the majority of the top six, whilst Crystal Palace and Newcastle could go a big way to ensuring survival when the pair meet at Selhurst Park.
Our final stop takes us to London though with two sides that are in the conversation for a qualification spot in the Champions League next season, with Arsenal hosting Everton on Sunday afternoon. Both clubs have new Manager’s and will both be hungry for the occasion given that all of their Champions League rivals play one another. It’s a big occasion and given what we saw last weekend, with Arsenal destroying Newcastle in the second-half during their 4-0 win, there is a difference maker in Alexandre Lacazette that could be the pivotal player in this encounter during Gameweek 27.
Everton boast 3 wins and 2 draws in their last 5 league fixtures, whilst Arsenal have 4 draws to go alongside their second-half demolition of Steve Bruce's hapless Magpies.
Scoring from the bench in the Gameweek 26 rout of Newcastle, Lacazette's first league goal in 8 appearances, the often overlooked French international followed up the end of his goal drought with the lone goal as Arsenal beat Greek outfit Olympiakos 1-0 away from home in the Europa League.
Football an be a cruel sport at times, with attacking players coming in and out of form without any notice. Lacazette is well and truly out of his dark patch of form and it wouldn't surprise us if the Forward could finally do what he's failed to do in any of the 5 Premier League games previously - score in the next match. There's nothing else to lose on this hype train of momentum, with Arteta surely having to include the resurgant Frenchman in a must-win game that could help greatly decide their Champions League fate.
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 27: Differential Captain
Player: Bruno Fernandes (MUN)
Position: Midfielder
Fixture: Watford (H)
Player Price: £8.0 million
Player Selection %: 3.0%
Reason for selection:
Each week in our Differentials article, Sam Austin profiles a differential captain and has opted for Man United's newest midfielder, Bruno Fernandes, to lead the line during Gameweek 27's action. You can read the article by clicking here, as well as by interacting with the embedded tweet below.
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.
