Captaincy Picks 2019/20: FPL Gameweek 28
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 28 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 28: Essential Captain
Player: Mohamed Salah (LIV)
Position: Midfielder
Fixture: Watford (A)
Player Price: £
Player Selection %:
Captaincy poll results:
Reason for victory:
No Man City? No problem. A reduced Gameweek this weekend doesn't really pack the bunch that it should do. Whilst 52.7% of players are left without the top FPL player this season in Kevin De Bruyne (MCI), players are prepping for life without Pep Guardiola's players, with Liverpool taking main focus yet again as their relentless assault towards an emphatic title win goes on after a battling 3-2 win over West Ham on Monday evening at Anfield.
Liverpool are just 4 games away from claiming their first Premier League crown. At this point, there is no title race with the over the Champions League spots the real hotbed of conversation as the league enters the business end of the campaign - heightened greatly by Man City's two-year ban in European competition after allegedly cooking the books back during the 2015/16 season. The only thing that is going to stop Jordan Henderson from lifting the trophy above his head is a real world catastrophe that wipes out all of humanity, and even then I think Klopp's side will overcome that obstacle.
For Salah, this is the fifth consecutive week The Egyptian King has been crowned as our captaincy poll winner, with Kevin De Bruyne the last player to sit at the summit during Gameweek 23, with KDB only mustering 2 points at home to Crystal Palace in a 2-2 draw at The Etihad. The move for the 175-point midfielder is unsurprising given how the most expensive player in the game has amassed 40 points over the last 4 games, an average of 10 points-per-game.
With 15 goals and 6 assists to his name already with 11 games left to play, it looks like Salah is going to have to up his contributions if he wants to challenge for a third consecutive Golden Boot award, with Arsenal's Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang running at full pace towards the award, leading the chasing pack alongside Jamie Vardy on 17 goals.
There just aren't too many game changing players in FPL that haven't already joined the conversation at this point, which means that until then, Jurgen Klopp's unstoppable juggernaut with continue to dominate the conversation, as they should, heading into an encounter with Watford on Saturday evening - just days before a mammoth Champions League game with Atletico Madrid at Anfield, a must-win game for The Reds given that they lost the first-leg 1-0 at the Wanda. Expect minutes managed if Liverpool get the job done early, or moreover what we think might happen, Divock Origi and Minamino might get starts at the expense of Liverpool's top three. It's not like they're being chased down in the league by anyone and can probably every game until the end of the season and still lift the elusive trophy.
Having gone down this road many times with Salah many times over the years, we're not even going to begin questioning any loophole or flaw that might be prevalent in creating an alternative Gameweek strategy, and even though it endangers the legitimacy of the next two picks in this article, his involvement alongside Mane can cause a Gameweek to flip on its head. The move for either is a necessary evil if you want to compete this week, so don't question guess their involvement, even if against your own better judgement.
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 28: Alternative Captain
Player: Trent Alexander-Arnold (LIV)
Position: Defender
Fixture: Watford (A)
Player Price: £
Player Selection %:
Reason for selection:
Sticking in the same club, there is a sure-fire bet for points this weekend and his name is of course Trent Alexander-Arnold. The right-back, who has just equalled his own record of 12 Premier League assists in a single season after a 3-2 home win over West Ham, is the next best bet when it comes to captaincy - so much so that we actually wrote half a write up about Danny Ing's potential against West Ham this Saturday before changing our minds when looking at TAA's statistics, especially since Ings has only scored 1 goal in his last 5 appearances and his hype has shown signs of cooling in recent games.
The last time Alexander-Arnold didn't manage an FPL return was Gameweek 16, a 3-0 away win at Bournemouth. Trent played 50 minutes and was a substitute for the injured Dejan Lovren, earning just a singular point. Go back even further, the last time TAA played 90 minutes and legitimately blanked was Gameweek 13's 2-1 away win at Crystal Palace, earning just 2 points.
That all means that TAA has provided 11 consecutive FPL returns, a mammoth run of returns that has seen 1 goal, 7 assists, 9 clean sheets, 11 bonus and 95 points. These are unreal statistics for a right-back, with Alexander-Arnold blanking in 7/27 matches this season.
Maybe we've all been looking at this all wrong in FPL all year. Trent was the best player on the pitch against West Ham and would have bagged you 190 points as captain over the last 11 Gameweek's. We didn't talk about Watford at all in our Salah analysis as it has become clear that the opposition doesn't really matter with The Reds has no bearing on the result or the Fantasy potential of their players.
There is not an argument against the TAA hype train leading into the Watford, with the only downside of Defender's being that they might fall off the face of the earth when entrusted. Alexander-Arnold has all but debunked that notion and is on course to challenge to be the best FPL player this season - what other defender in the game can hold such high acclaim?
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 28: Dark Horse Captain
Player: Dominic Calvert-Lewin (EVE)
Position: Forward
Fixture: Man United (H)
Player Price: £
Player Selection %:
Reason for selection:
In the shadow of Liverpool, there is an underbelly of Merseyside society that is planning for a coup of its own this season, with The Toffees part of the conversation about qualifying for the Champions League next season. In Carlo Ancelotti they have the Manager that is tailor made for the competition, in a city littered with success in the competition.
The most exciting thing to happen to the Premier League to inject some genuine curiosity into the game was Man City's ban from playing in Europe, a move by UEFA that has the likes of Everton, Sheffield United and Wolves all believing that they can break the monopoly of the elite 'Top 6' that have dominated the English game for the majority of the past decade.
Everton are currently in 11th place on 36 points, just 5 points behind 5th placed Man United, their opponents this weekend at Goodison. After faultering 3-2 away at Arsenal last week, there would be no better way than to shakes the foundations of the Champions League race than if Everton avenged their recent loss with a win over a United side that have Europa League commitments this coming Thursday against Club Bruges at Old Trafford, with the scores level at 1-1 after former Liverpool keeper Simon Mignolet assist the Bruges goal in the lively draw.
This then all shapes up for a perfect dark horse captaincy pick in 12-goal Dominic Calvert-Lewin, a player that could have easily had a hat-trick against Arsenal this past Sunday, yet having to settle for a single goal and 6 FPL points.
Is Everton's Fixture List Daunting?
GW28: Man United (H)
GW29: Chelsea (A)
GW30: Liverpool (H)
GW31: Norwich (A)
GW32: Leicester (H)
GW33: Spurs (A)
Dominic Calvert-Lewin has scored 7 goals in nine Premier League appearances under Carlo Ancelotti, including goals in 4 of his last 5 appearances, having netted 7 in his previous 31 games before the former Napoli Head Coach took charge.
DCL is currently the best low budget Forward in the game and he could be a real asset during Gameweek 28, despite Everton having some difficult fixtures at hand, with Chelsea (GW29) and Liverpool (GW30) immediately following - a period that will define whether or not Everton will finish mid-table or among Europe's elite next season. If the latter, Calvert-Lewin and Richarlison look to be the players that will fire the blue side of Liverpool into a state of hysteria.
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 28: Differential Captain
Player: Bruno Fernandes (MUN)
Position: Midfielder
Fixture: Everton (A)
Player Price: £8.2 million +
Player Selection %: 7.2%
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 28'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.
