Premier League 2020/21: FPL Gameweek 29 Fantasy Forecast
Ahead of each Gameweek in the Premier League, The Hype Train's team, Robert Austin, Sam Austin and Phil Jones, duel for FPL and league supremacy in predicting Premier League scores, as well as going head to head in picking a Scout Picks squad for each round of games. With the 2020/21 Premier League season starting tomorrow, we provide our Gameweek Forecast predictions, speculating how we think the latest round of games will be played out. Welcome to the Forecast. All aboard.
Premier League 2020/21: Gameweek 29 Fixtures
Premier League 2020/21: FPL Gameweek 29 Forecast
Enjoy our FPL Forecast article, with each of our team forecasting how we think the Premier League will shape up this upcoming Gameweek. If you agree or want to challenge us on our point of view, get in touch with us on our main Twitter account, @RealHypeTrain.
Fixture Predictions: Gameweek 29
Fulham 1-4 Leeds
Brighton 2-0 Newcastle
West Ham 1-1 Arsenal
Aston Villa 0-2 Spurs
FPL Forecasting: Gameweek 29
12 teams aren’t playing due to the FA Cup sixth round:
Burnley, Chelsea, Crystal Palace, Everton, Leicester, Liverpool, Man United, Newcastle, Sheffield United, Southampton, West Brom, Wolves
FA Cup Quarter-Final Matches:
1 - Everton vs. Manchester City
2 - Bournemouth vs. Southampton
3 - Leicester vs. Manchester United
4 - Chelsea vs. Sheffield United
Do you have a strategy heading into the Blank Gameweek?
My strategy is based on pure hope. Literally. My FPL team must have about 2 or 3 players that are eligible. The problem of this Gameweek is that in order to compete in this week you need to use a valuable chip that would otherwise be used in the hectic Double Gameweeks towards the end of the season. So, if I use my Free Hit now, it can’t be used when there are back-to-back Double Gameweeks. I may drop a couple of points and just get by, as I don’t want to necessarily compromise my team when there are only a few players of value in this Gameweek in the first place.
Top FPL player targets ahead of the upcoming Gameweek:
GK: Robert Sánchez (BHA, GK, £4.5mil, 3.8% ownership)
DEF: Stuart Dallas (LEE, DEF, £5.1mil, 24.7% ownership)
MID: Gareth Bale (TOT, MID, £9.6mil, 13.1% ownership)
FWD: Harry Kane (TOT, FWD, £11.5mil, 43.3% ownership)
Who are the teams to look out for and avoid?:
Newcastle (Avoid): They are still one of the worst teams in the league, and Steve Bruce is still heading towards the relegation zone. This is a huge game is at decides who is going to be nervously fighting off relegation. Brighton has the momentum, form, and players to do it, and Newcastle just don’t. I can see a Brighton win.
Spurs (Watch): Having picked up some momentum, the only blow for Spurs is that Son is out injured for this Gameweek. Villa are still without Grealish and since his injury Villa have lost their edge, meaning this game is for the taking. They are the standout team this Gameweek which is in itself a big part of this Gameweek’s problems.
Gameweek 29 – FPL Differential Picks:
FUL/LEE: Jack Harrison (LEE, MID, £5.4mil, 2.9% ownership)
BHA/NEW: Robert Sánchez (BHA, GK, £4.5mil, 3.8% ownership)
WHU/ARS: Alexandre Lacazette (ARS, FWD, £8.1mil, 5.9% ownership)
AVL/TOT: Lucas Moura (TOT, MID, £6.6mil, 2.0% ownership)
Differential Captain: Robert Sánchez (Brighton)
My choice this week isn’t an attacker of any kind. Why? I have no idea if any of the three differentials will do anything. Lacazette could be rotated. Leeds aren’t scoring, so not much hope for Harrison, and Spurs just got dumped out of the Europa League in humiliating circumstances against Dinamo in extra-time, so they’re legs have taken a pounding.
There is reasonable doubt in all three of them fixtures, but not for Brighton. After besting Southampton in the South Coast clash the Seagulls now face Newcastle in what is a relegation six-pointer, and Brighton have all the momentum. Newcastle are also on the opposite end of the spectrum where they have none, and I can see them struggle to score with the litany of injuries that are plaguing the Toon right now. Brighton is a no-brainer, and Sanchez is a cheap option for most teams that makes him a sensible selection until Graham Potter’s side concede in the second minute via an own-goal.
FPL Scout Picks: Gameweek 29
Formation: 3-4-3
Starting 11
GK: Robert Sánchez (BHA)
DEF: Stuart Dallas (LEE)
DEF: Sergio Reguilón (TOT)
DEF: Ezgjan Alioski (LEE)
MID: Leandro Trossard (BHA)
MID: Gareth Bale (TOT) - (VC)
MID: Raphinha (LEE)
MID: Jesse Lingard (WHU)
FOR: Neal Maupay (BHA)
FOR: Harry Kane (TOT) - (C)
FOR: Alexandre Lacazette (ARS)
Substitutes
GK: Alphonse Areola (FUL)
MID: Ademola Lookman (FUL)
DEF: Kieran Tierney (ARS)
DEF: Aaron Cresswell (WHU)
Fixture Predictions: Gameweek 29
Fulham 2-1 Leeds
Brighton 2-0 Newcastle
West Ham 1-3 Arsenal
Aston Villa 1-0 Spurs
FPL Forecasting: Gameweek 29
12 teams aren’t playing due to the FA Cup sixth round:
Burnley, Chelsea, Crystal Palace, Everton, Leicester, Liverpool, Man United, Newcastle, Sheffield United, Southampton, West Brom, Wolves
FA Cup Quarter-Final Matches:
1 - Everton vs. Manchester City
2 - Bournemouth vs. Southampton
3 - Leicester vs. Manchester United
4 - Chelsea vs. Sheffield United
Do you have a strategy heading into the Blank Gameweek?
Up until Friday morning, the day of the Gameweek 29 deadline I chose to completely ignore my team, for obvious reasons if you don’t have your Free Hit chip at play. Here’s only four games and they all involve flaky-form teams who run both hot and cold at the same time. It’s a week in which we’re left to pick from a small field of candidates, none of whom are truly inspiring and have a low glass ceiling.
My personal predicament is that I start the week with just six available players – Martinez (AVL), Son (TOT), Harrison (LEE), Aubameyang (ARS), Bamford (LEE) and Watkins (AVL) – with Son a major doubt and unlikely to feature against Villa, and Bamford an injury doubt too, which potentially leaves me with just the four players.
This situation is millions face, though I’m not sure dropping points is a good alternative this week. Trying to predict the outcome of the matches this week is no easy feat, and within that gambling on those who will be among the FPL points becomes a shade harder, though there are obvious places to start.
Newcastle’s lack of adventure puts Lewis Dunk (£5.0m) and the slightly-cheaper Ben White (£4.4m) as good defensive selections – key as I don’t have a single defender available, so will make this my first port of call. Brighton play Man United immediately after though, so you may prefer Fulham’s Tosin Adarabioyo (£4.5m) or Ola Aina (£4.6m) against Leeds as they potential longevity in our teams as they visit Aston Villa in
Higher up the pitch, you have Gareth Bale (£9.6m) and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang (£11.5m) as the premium picks, though you may find set-piece value in Pascal Gross (£5.8m) or goal-scoring potential in Leandro Trossard (£5.8m) at Brighton, whilst you also have the low-risk of owning Jesse Lingard (£6.1m) against Mikel Arteta’s Arsenal.
In attack Josh Maja (£5.5m) should return to the Fulham team and can offer a lot of pace and power against Leeds, whilst Ollie Watkins (£6.6m) has become an afterthought due to the FPL media outlets only pointing to Spurs as viable candidates. More realistically, Alexandre Lacazette (£8.1m) has 2 goals in his last 3 matches and is mightily tempting, though again The Gunners are in the same predicament as Spurs – playing teams with stubborn defences away from home.
Ultimately, I think with two free transfers in the bank I will be making three changes and settling on having a 7-8 man team this weekend, depending on the fitness of Bamford and Son, the latter of whom I can see not featuring at all after Jose Mourinho who gloomy about the South Korean’s potential involvement.
Just make sure you cover a couple of players in each position though and you’ll be fine – you shouldn’t ‘Ruxen’ your team just for the sake of one week when all of the big-hitters return after the international break, where I’m assuming we will have even more concerns to deal with as the Premier League season hits the business end of this exhausting campaign.
Upcoming League Fixtures for Gameweek 29 Teams:
Fulham: Leeds (H), Aston Villa (A)
Leeds: Fulham (A), Sheffield United (H)
Brighton: Newcastle (H), Man United (A)
Newcastle: Brighton (A), Spurs (H)
West Ham: Arsenal (H), Wolves (A)
Arsenal: West Ham (A), Liverpool (H)
Aston Villa: Spurs (H), Fulham (H)
Spurs: Aston Villa (A), Newcastle (A)
Who are the teams to look out for and avoid?:
Newcastle (Avoid):
Our weekly Forecast article has been a safe space for me to put out some long, depressing discussion pieces about the continued downfall of my beloved Newcastle United. Seemingly destined for the Championship on our current form, managed by incompetence from the boardroom to the field of play, missing our best creative and goalscoring sparks, it’s safe to safe that the glass is half-empty right now and the situation has never been as black and white as it is now. We’re being steered into danger by repeating history by allowing poor managerial staff to continually take a stranglehold of the team without so much as a weekly game plan.
Brighton, for all of their issues, at least have a structure and should have scored far more goals than they have at this stage of the season and have been playing some good football. This is a huge game at the bottom and it’s one I can only see going one way, with a dominant home performance, a clean sheet to boast and sacred goals that take Graham Potter’s side closer to the safety line.
The tale won’t be over though. Fulham are also my favourites to win and I can see the narrative becoming about Newcastle finally falling into the relegation zone – at that point will the media, who up until this point have gone easy on Steve Bruce, begin to see to see a grim reality.
Spurs (Avoid) / Villa (Watch):
It appears that Spurs have pulled the old rabbit out of the hat, only the rabbit died and it was only the small bones picked from the oversized hat. This isn’t a team to be trusted to even keep ice cream cold in a freezer. I’m just under the impression that Jose Mourinho’s side, now out of the Europa League (congratulations to Dinamo on a massive win), just don’t have the tools to see out stubborn opposition – and that’s exactly what Aston Villa are.
Emi Martinez has been a constant professional, they have a consistently good defence that will limit the score-line and have some attacking players that should punish a weak Spurs backline, and that’s even without Jack Grealish.
FPL players are looking at this Gameweek with a tunnel vision, due to the lack of fixtures, that Harry Kane will be the saviour of the masses due to being the only big name at hand. His Expected Ownership when it concerns captaincy will be through the roof and it will massively damage you if you don’t at least have him, which is a problem as the reality is that Spurs aren’t all conquering and might be in for a frustrating Sunday evening at Villa Park. I have included Harry Kane in my Forecast team purely out of circumstance of the Gameweek, though it will most likely be the lowest-scoring Gameweek in FPL history.
Arsenal (Watch):
As much as West Ham are having a good season, I just have a feeling that their European hopes will begin to unravel. This isn’t to downplay a fantastic season to date, but I’ve just that gut feeling that Lacazette and Aubameyang (if he isn’t late) will offer too much going forward, with the Frenchman in particularly good form having notched his 10th goal of the league campaign in the home win over Spurs last time out.
Fulham (Watch):
Leeds are struggling to score goals, which was always on the cards. It’s just unsustainable that a newly-promoted team would continually score 3-4 goals a game. We’re at squeaky bum time during the season and with Scott Parker’s side playing some good, compact football, this has writing on the wall of a narrow home win – especially as Fulham are the one’s on a positive train of momentum and they’ll relish dumping Newcastle into the relegation places.
Gameweek 29 - FPL Captaincy Picks:
Essential: Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang (ARS)
Alternative: Neal Maupay (BHA)
Differential: Josh Maja (FUL)
This just in, Kane and Auba are the top picks for the armband this week. The back-page story broke on such acclaimed websites as ‘Obviously’, ‘Duh-Doy’ and ‘Of Course It Was Them’. It’s not an aspiring week for FPL selections, though there are certainly a number of headaches at play, especially if the move backfires and you’re left with dud players when ‘normal’ service resumes for Gameweek 30.
I’m more interested in left-field picks in Neal Maupay and Josh Maja, though both would be one-week quick fixes that go against the so-called narrative of Gameweek 29 being the Harry Kane show (again, have you watched their last couple of matches).
FPL Scout Picks: Gameweek 29
Formation: 3-4-3
Starting 11
GK: Emi Martinez (AVL)
DEF: Lewis Dunk (BHA)
DEF: Ola Aina (FUL)
DEF: Ezra Konsa (AVL)
MID: Leandro Trossard (BHA)
MID: Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang (ARS) – (C)
MID: Martin Ødegaard (ARS)
MID: Jesse Lingard (WHU)
FOR: Neau Maupay (BHA) – (VC)
FOR: Ollie Watkins (AVL)
FOR: Harry Kane (TOT)
Substitutes
GK: Alphonse Areola (FUL)
MID: Ademola Lookman (FUL)
DEF: Stuart Dallas (LEE)
DEF: Aaron Cresswell (WHU)
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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.
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. We won both Goal of the Season Awards in the Berkshire and County FA regions, with Callum Parr-Jones winning the Berks & Bucks FA award, whilst Martin King won the PlaySport UK award.
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.
