Ahead of each Gameweek in the Fantasy Premier League, The Hype Train's three front-men, Robert Austin, Sam Austin and Phil Jones, 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 17 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 17

Liverpool 3-0 Watford

Burnley 1-1 Newcastle

Chelsea 3-1 Bournemouth

Leicester 4-0 Norwich

Sheffield United 1-1 Aston Villa

Southampton 2-1 West Ham

Man United 2-2 Everton

Wolves 1-1 Spurs

Arsenal 1-2 Man City

Crystal Palace 1-0 Brighton

FPL Forecasting: Gameweek 17

Top FPL transfer targets for the weekend:

GK: Vincente Guaita (CRY, GK, £5.1mil, 2.1% ownership)

DEF: Martin Kelly (CRY, DEF, £4.3mil, 28.8% ownership)

MID: Dele Alli (TOT, MID, £8.7mil, 12.0% ownership)

FWD: Danny Ings (SOU, FWD, £6.3mil, 11.5% ownership)

Who are the teams to look out for and avoid?:

Arsenal (Avoid): Playing City isn’t good news as Arsenal have just won an away game for the first time in what feels like a century.

Spurs (Avoid): Wolves have been unbeaten in the Premier League since GW5 when they lost at home to Chelsea. Wolves have also scored in every game since. This will be a tightly contested fixture which could hamper Spurs recent purple patch.

Crystal Palace (Watch): Two back-to-back clean sheets is promising, and defensive assets for the Eagles are a must in this fixture.

Leicester (Watch): One of the best attacks, and so far, this season’s best defence. A home tie against Norwich feels like a rudimentary result which will combine both goals and clean sheets for the Foxes.

FPL Captaincy Picks:

(C) – Jamie Vardy: The Fox in the Box is on course to repeat the miracle of scoring in twelve straight games like he did in 2015/16. Norwich at home is most likely the ninth game in a row he will score.

(VC) – Sadio Mane: Who else? Liverpool will play their best team against Watford to prepare for the Club World Cup. Mane is the league’s best player now and gets the vice captaincy in the early fixture.

Other Gameweek Comments:

We are still within rotation season, and that could still mean you might be relying on your bench players. This is also the last week before Liverpool go off to the Club World Cup for GW18. You may need to bank a transfer or rely on your bench for a week.

FPL Scout Picks: Gameweek 17

Formation: 3-4-3

Starting 11

GK: Vincente Guaita (CRY)

DEF: Ricardo Pereira (LEI)

DEF: John Lundstram (SHU)

DEF: Andrew Robertson (LIV)

MID: Kevin De Bruyne (MCI)

MID: James Maddison (LEI)

MID: Mohamad Salah (LIV)

MID: Sadio Mane (LIV) - (VC)

FOR: Tammy Abraham (CHE)

FOR: Jamie Vardy (LEI) - (C)

FOR: Marcus Rashford (MUN)

Substitutes

GK: Martin Dubravka (NEW)

MID: Mason Mount (CHE)

DEF: Martin Kelly (CRY)

DEF: Federico Fernandez (NEW)

Fixture Prediction: Gameweek 17

Liverpool 3-0 Watford

Burnley 1-2 Newcastle

Chelsea 2-1 Bournemouth

Leicester 3-0 Norwich

Sheffield United 1-0 Aston Villa

Southampton 1-1 West Ham

Man United 2-1 Everton

Wolves 2-3 Spurs

Arsenal 1-3 Man City

Crystal Palace 1-0 Brighton

FPL Forecasting: Gameweek 17

Top FPL transfer targets for the weekend:

George Baldock (SHU): I brought in Baldock alongside Lundstram a few weeks ago, with the wing-back showing great promise at both ends of the field.

Danny Ings (SOU): Goals in 5 consecutive games, with 8 goals in his last 10 fixtures. Ings is the best budget Forward option by quite a long way.

I’d also love to bring in the likes of Heung-Min Son (TOT) and Marcus Rashford (MUN), but I’m struggling at the idea of getting rid of KDB for Son and Rashford for Abraham. It’s actually nice having potential options at least.

Palace, Newcastle and Sheffield United still have good defensive fixtures, so for a third week in a row, I’d still advocate for their top FPL options to come in.

Who are the teams to look out for and avoid?:

Man United & Everton (Avoid): Everton were very good against Chelsea and might just provide a test at Man United. Richarlison has looked recently, Rashfoord too, so you’d be right to believe that this game might have some goals in it.

Burnley & Bournemouth (Avoid): Big losing streaks for both teams heading into the Xmas period is not good news for either against competent opposition.

Arsenal (Avoid): No Manager and out of their depth. City should cruise to a win at The Emirates against a team that crumbles against Top 6 sides.

Crystal Palace (Watch): Defensively sound, I’ve been eyeing up some of their defensive potential this week. Martin Kelly should be coming back into many teams (if he was ever removed as the fifth defensive pick).

Newcastle (Watch): Newcastle cruised to a win at Burnley last year. Our defenders are pretty solid and we have form on our side when compared to Burnley.

FPL Captaincy Picks:

(C) – Jamie Vardy (LEI): It’s election day in the UK, with many people having to pick between a host of truly terrible options. Thankfully in the world of Fantasy, Vardy is n overwhelming favourite with huge numbers at the polls. Visitors Norwich should provide a routine home win for Leicester.

(VC) – Mohamed Salah (LIV): Mo loves an outing against Watford, so I’ll favour The Egyptian King over Mane this week in my picks.

Other Gameweek Comments:

Liverpool and West Ham don’t play next week, so save a transfer where you can so you can have a strong squad for next week. Do we advise getting rid of your Liverpool players? Absolutely not. Just strengthen other areas and bring them back in for Gameweek 19.

FPL Scout Picks: Gameweek 17

Formation: 3-4-3

Starting 11

GK: Vicente Guaita (CRY)

DEF: Trent Alexander-Arnold (LIV)

DEF: George Baldock (SHU)

DEF: Caglar Soyuncu (LEI)

MID: Mason Mount (CHE)

MID: Kevin De Bruyne (MCI)

MID: Mohamed Salah (LIV) – (VC)

MID: Wilfried Zaha (CRY)

FOR: Tammy Abraham (CHE)

FOR: Jamie Vardy (LEI) – (C)

FOR: Danny Ings (SOU)

Substitutes

GK: Dean Henderson (SHU)

MID: Ayoze Perez (LEI)

DEF: Federico Fernandez (NEW)

DEF: Martin Kelly (CRY)

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.