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 14 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 14: Essential Captain

Player: Jamie Vardy (LEI)

Position: Forward

Fixture: Everton (H)

Player Price: £9.7 million

Player Selection %: 41.3%

Captaincy poll results:

Reason for victory:

Champions League football in midweek drew a crude smile and a large gulp of breath from impression-obsessed FPL social media aficionado's that couldn't believe Tammy Abraham was carter off at half-time after an awkward landing with Valencia's Ezequiel Garay, believing that the Englishman was done for in terms of being an essential part of the Fantasy Football fabric this season in the Premier League. Not only did the 'official' FPL Twitter handle offend everybody this week with the worst attempt at humour in the history of all things comedy, they immediately listed Abraham as an orange flag (aka a 25% chance of playing this week). Doom and gloom is an immediate go-to nowadays, a perverse tactic for the game's handlers to drum up false interest and conversation about the game this season.

Instead of following the insanity, the point above connects to the larger theme of our captaincy article this week, that despite Tammy being a star-turn this season, there's no reason to get ahead of ourselves as the supposed answer to our Fantasy problems has fully emerged in the form of Leicester City and their talisman, Jamie Vardy.

All three of Vardy's captaincy poll victories this season have been minority victories, which at its core means that the Englishman still doesn't have universal backing due to Man City, Chelsea and Liverpool options being somewhat of a competition for the top scorer in the league to date. This shouldn't distract you from the numbers that ultimately back up Vardy's appeal, as they do the talking better than we ever could, ahead of Everton's visit this weekend.

Letting the stats do the talking:

Jamie Vardy is the first player in FPL this season to reach 100 points, managing the feat during #GW13 with the Forward scoring 12 points during a 2-0 away win at Brighton. Vardy, now on 104pts, has scored 12 goals, provided 4 assists and accumulated an unmatched 19 bonus points.

Vardy, who has only blanked 5/13 times this season, has only done so against teams currently playing in European competition; Wolves (GW1), Chelsea (GW2), Man United (GW5), Spurs (GW6) and Liverpool (GW8).

Vardy is also the first player in FPL to be in the Dream Team 5 times this season, with 3 of his appearances in the last 5 Gameweek's.

GW4: Leicester 3-1 Bournemouth (16pts)

GW7: Leicester 5-0 Newcastle (12pts)

GW9: Southampton 0-9 Leicester (20pts)

GW12: Leicester 2-0 Arsenal (12pts)

GW13: Brighton 0-2 Leicester (12pts)

Leicester have 6 clean sheets this season, more than any other club, keeping 4 consecutive clean sheets after FPL Gameweek 13.

GW10: Southampton 0-9 Leicester

GW11: Crystal Palace 0-2 Leicester

GW12: Leicester 2-0 Arsenal

GW13: Brighton 0-2 Leicester

Leicester, who have scored 15 goals in their last 4 league matches, currently sit in second in the Premier League table having scored the the second most number of goals (31), as well as being the only side in England's top-flight to concede fewer than 10 goals (8).

Leicester also have the best form in the Premier League over their last 5 matches, winning all 5 games (scoring 17 and conceding 1). Vardy either scored or assisted 10 of these 17 goals (7 goals, 3 assists).

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 14: Alternative Captain

Player: Marcus Rashford (MUN)

Position: Forward

Fixture: Aston Villa (H)

Player Price: £8.6 million

Player Selection %: 15.8%

Reason for selection:

Man United might be languishing in the mid-ranges of the Premier League table due to an indifferent and uninspiring start to the season, though purely from an FPL perspective, there is at least one diamond in the rough.

Ahead of Gameweek 14, Marcus Rashford sits as the joint-fifth best player in the game, currently sat on 74 points (the same as Arsenal's Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang). United welcome Aston Villa on Sunday afternoon, a side who punished Newcastle with set-pieces and should be heading to Old Trafford with a lot of confidence.

Man United have only lost 1 of their last 5 Premier League matches, a 1-0 Gameweek 11 loss away to Bournemouth courtesy of a sublime Josh King effort. Aside from the loss, it's been a profitable period for Marcus Rashford, with the Englishman scoring 4 and assist 2 goals in that period.

Rashford's form is consistent enough to propel him into this position ahead of the likes of an injured Abraham, De Bruyne, Sterling or the Liverpool attacking assets in the absence of Fabinho (a change of shape might happen at Anfield now), though if you have Rashford after Villa, it's a midweek home game against Jose Mourinho's Spurs, before a Gameweek 16 visit to Man City next weekend.

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 14: Dark Horse Captain

Player: Alexandre Lacazette (ARS)

Position: Forward

Fixture: Norwich (A)

Player Price: £9.3 million

Player Selection %: 2.2%

Reason for selection:

News has broken this afternoon that Unai Emery has been axed at Arsenal after less than two years in charge at the club, with a half-empty Emirates Stadium watching Arsenal get beat 2-1 to a Frankfurt side that sold their best attacking talents last summer (Haller to West Ham and Jovic to Real Madrid).

We've knee-jerked to the news and have thrown Lacazette in as the Dark Horse pick this week and his inclusion perfectly fits the bills that left-field punts are aimed at. A now-managerless club travelling away from home to a relegation threatened side that have just found some form.

Norwich just beat Everton 2-0 away from home, but preparations for both teams will have been thrown to the side after Emery's dismissal. Freddie Ljungberg, club legend at Arsenal, has stepped in as Interim Head Coach at the club and we don't know what will happen with lineup or selection at Carrow Road on Saturday.

Under the spotlight, Lacazette started his second consecutive game, scoring twice in Gameweek 13 against Southampton at home, the first time since Gameweek 4 in which Lacazette has score. In theory, Lacazette should be the man to lead the line at Arsenal again, and if there is a positive reaction from The Gunners on Sunday, we could be looking at the go-to in Arsenal's attack.

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 14: Differential Captain

Player: Chris Wood (BUR)

Position: Forward

Fixture: Crystal Palace (H)

Player Price: £6.2 million

Player Selection %: 1.1%

Reason for selection:

This isn’t the first time that we have picked Chris Wood as differential captain this year, the New Zealander was our GW1 captain against Southampton, but it didn’t go exactly the way we wanted. Wood was regular in the team, and for the first six weeks it was the Ashley Barnes show for Burnley. The Clarets have climbed the table after two consecutive wins, and sit in seventh position going into this Gameweek, which is six places higher than their opposition this weekend: Crystal Palace

The Eagles have had a tough time of late, mostly due to their horrid fixture schedule. Palace have played Man City, Arsenal, Leicester, Chelsea, and most recently Liverpool in their last five games. Roy Hodgson’s team are winless in five games, and they have also conceded exactly two goals in each of these five games. To make matters worse for Palace is that both Ashley Barnes, and this week’s differential captain Chris Wood, are in scoring form. After a slow start for Wood, the striker has found the back of the next six times in the last eight games. Here are a reminder of the goals that Wood has scored this season.

Chris Wood’s goals this season:

GW6: 2 goals vs. Norwich (H)

GW7: 1 goal vs. Aston Villa (A)

GW9: 1 goal vs. Leicester (A)

GW12: 1 goal vs. West Ham (H)

GW13: 1 goal vs. Watford (A)

This fixture is a classic case of a perfect storm brewing. Burnley are in form, their strikers are scoring, and their opposition are in bad form and conceding lots of goals and struggling to score them too. The Clarets have lost two games this season at Turf Moor, which came at the hands of Liverpool and Chelsea. These are two teams that can go to grounds and pick up points, but Burnley are beating the teams that you would expect them too at home. Southampton, Everton, Norwich, West Ham, and Watford are the current scalps collected by Sean Dyche on home soil and believe it not they have yet to draw a home game this season.

Burnley have also put out a statement at Turf Moor, of these five wins against relative competition, Nick Pope has kept a clean sheet in all these fixtures. The writing on the wall does not look encouraging for FPL managers looking to bring in Palace assets for their good run of fixtures.

Burnley vs. Crystal Palace is one of them fixtures where FPL managers will look at all the underlying stats and still not be convinced about them, especially because there are a plethora of comfortable home games featuring the in-form teams. Frankly, this is a fixture that is being actively ignored unless you have Nick Pope in goal, and with the Clarets fixtures getting tougher you may also start looking for alternatives in the next few weeks. This is a differential fixture that could throw anything at us, which is why it is the one we are focusing on for this week’s captaincy. Everything points to Woods and Barnes keeping up their scoring form.

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.

You can follow us on Twitter, Like us on Facebook, follow Hype Train FC on Instagram, subscribe to our YouTube channel for exclusive content, or visit our website here at www.thehypetrain.co.uk

All aboard.