Captain Picks Fantasy Football Game-week 9 – Fantasy Premier League 2015/16

Well Aguero went and did me a solid by removing himself from the reckoning this GW; at home to injury-ravaged Bournemouth on the back of smashing 5 past McClaren’s sorry bunch, he’d have made this a very short article indeed. All tipping one player. Him. The fantasy Gods had other plans though, and us mere mortals just along for the ride must look elsewhere for our double or triple points, and I get to write a few more paragraphs. Meanwhile normal service has at last returned to FPL Land, with pricey players banging the goals in, managers being replaced, multiple injuries plaguing fantasy managers’ teams, and England both acing a qualifying group and being dumped out of a World Cup in the round robin stage, standard. Ah, normality, can’t beat it.

Brendan was granted his wish of being judged after three years, and you’ll be hard-pressed to find a Liverpool fan who isn’t excited at the prospect of their new manager taking the helm. Fourth officials will be happy too, as they had missed their weekly handouts* for administering Fergie Time – they now look forward to doling out Kloppage Time (getting your groans out of the way nice and early, you’re welcome). Earlier to the north-east, Dick was an advocate of his own departure from Sunderland, which was probably the best thing for all parties involved. Big Sam comes in to do a job, which he’ll likely succeed in, subjecting us all to the absolute indifference of watching Sunderland in the Premiership for another season at least. One of these new managers is likely to make his players fantasy assets once more, and, for a risky few, possibly even captaincy options this GW.

*Needs source confirmation.

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Graziano Pellè (home vs Leicester)

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[/three_fourth]Top of the list is the big Italian, who is so far repeating his antics from last season by scoring very well early on. Whether or not he’ll keep this up remains to be seen, but, with Leicester being one of only three teams to not yet keep a clean sheet, not many people would bet against him adding to his 5 goals and 5 assists here. It should be noted that after the will-he-won’t-he debate raged on, Sadio Mané has in fact been with Senegal this international break, which could lead to a late return to Southampton so keep an ear out for Koeman’s presser. This could have an impact on Pellè’s potential returns, but he is still capable of roaring even with his Mané trimmed. Pelle’s confidence will have recieved a further boost by scoring the winner for Italy against Norway on Wednesday.

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Jamie Vardy (away vs Southampton)

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[/three_fourth]There’s a fine line between following form and chasing points, and, truth be told, I’m not even sure where it is most of the time. When you score 6 goals in your last 5 league games though like this lad has done, you can rest assured that it’s not the latter, and you automatically force yourself into the reckoning for the armband. Okay, so it’s not Lewandowski levels of consistency, but is captain-worthy nonetheless. 3 of these goals have come away from home too, so don’t be put off by the fact that he’s not playing at the Kung Pow Stadium. With Ranieri seemingly adopting a Keegan-like philosophy of “if you score two, we’ll score three” and Vardy’s mate Mahrez likely to return to the supply line, don’t bet against the England striker (wow) continuing his great start to the season.

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Kevin De Bruyne (home vs Bournemouth)

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[/three_fourth]This guy is also on fire at the moment, setting up and banging in goals for club and country. The blue half of Manchester will be relieved to see him come through international duty unscathed as they are fast running out of room in their infirmary! This is unlikely to affect his output too much though, and could actually lead to him becoming a more focal point in their attack while the likes of Aguero, Silva and Toure are out of action. His opponents this GW have plenty of their own injury worries too, and are unlikely to put up much resistance at the Etihad as 9 of their 12 goals conceded have come on the road. Three goals in his last three matches for City, combined with two assists last time out vs Newcastle, shows that de Bruyne has settled into Premier League life very quickly….and very effectively.

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Alexis Sánchez (away vs Watford)

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[/three_fourth]The pint-sized Chilean has sprung to life again and with devastating effect, scoring 5 in the last couple of outings. Tipped by both Tekno and Init for those two GWs, I’m not about to omit him here and miss out on the glory of his inevitable goals in GW9! Well inevitable is probably going too far, given that his opponents have the joint-most-miserly defence in the league, but so did United last GW and I didn’t see that bothering him. After a slow start to the campaign, when Wenger admitted he should have been given more rest, it now appears that Alexis has got back to full fitness and beginning to mirror his devastating form of last season. He’s a real class act, and if he decides to turn up at Vicarage Road then he could well turn the place into a Hornet’s nest.

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Obligatory suggestions: Riyad Mahrez and Dimitri Payet

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[/three_fourth]It’s almost getting boring seeing these two continue to rack up the points. The Tinkerman lived up to his name last GW, opting to rest his key man, and he still tops the overall points leaderboard. The way they both are so integral to their teams’ attacks is highlighted by the high number of bonus points they get, as opposed to someone like Walcott, who has done very well over the last few GWs but is not involved in general play as much, and has hence received no bonus points yet, and therefore is unfortunately not the best candidate for captaincy currently. Now, the four options above are more tailored picks for this GW, but, if in doubt, you can always just slap the armband on one of these two and reap the likely rewards without having to put too much thought into it.

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Risky Picks: Diego Costa and Daniel Sturridge

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[/three_fourth]Continuing on from Pancho’s fantastic differential vein, here are a couple of picks for those of you who are still ranked relatively lowly or are just adrenaline junkies; with great risk sometimes comes significant green arrows (a small percentage of the time). Costa is just back from his deserved ban, and, if not for his opposition, would not be getting a mention at all given how dire Chelsea have been, but Villa have been equally so and at the moment Sherwood can’t seem to see the forest for the trees – this is as good a chance to turn a corner as the Blues will get. Sturridge on the other hand has had a decent reintroduction to life in the Prem, and this would be a pick for anyone feeling that the Klopp effect will be instantaneous. Given Aguero’s injury and the fact that these two are both expensive players too, they could be seen as a solid stopgap until he returns. Whether you’d want to risk all and captain them though is all down to you.

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Triple Captain Chip

Just a quick word on the new feature this season. It pretty much does what it says on the tin and trebles your points for your captain on whichever game-week you choose to deploy it. We shall touch on this as and when we feel the opportunity presents itself to use it effectively but this in all likelihood is one to save for when we encounter double game-weeks later on in the season.

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Thanks for reading Captain Picks Fantasy Football Game-week 9. This article was written by Calvin Clyne

Follow @SharpyBoy86

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