CAPTAINCY PICKS 2019/20: FPL Gameweek 3

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 3 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 3: Essential Captain

Player: Harry Kane (TOT)

Position: Forward

Fixture: Newcastle (H)

Player Price: £11.0 millio

Player Selection %: 30.8%

Captaincy poll results:

Reason for victory:

Spurs have officially gotten their hardest fixture of the season out of the way, with the London side somehow coming away with a point at Man City, albeit from a helping hand from VAR.

Spurs have great home fixtures to start the season and got off the mark with a 3-1 win over Aston Villa, with Harry Kane netting twice on the opening day. Next up, Newcastle visit town, which is a huge part as to why Kane won our essential captaincy poll this week - although the Englishman didn't manage to get a majority of the votes.

As a Newcastle fan writing this, you almost want to endorse Kane as a captaincy pick, as you can always sense impending doom at our doorstep. The Magpies have started the season in horrible fashion. Forget that we played Arsenal on the opening day, we have been nothing but lacklustre in both games, with Steve Bruce well in over his head at the club, with a group of players that quite clearly miss and need Rafa Benitez's organisation.

What this is all leading up to for us Newcastle faithful is a sour afternoon at Spurs's new stadium, so why not captain Kane? He's on penalties and has overcome his August drought, with Spurs looking solid for points across the pitch.

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 3: Alternative Captain

Player: Anthony Martial (MUN)

Position: Midfielder

Fixture: Crystal Palace (H)

Player Price: £7.7 million +

Player Selection %: 14.3%

Reason for selection:

If there is one player riding a big wave of momentum in the FPL right now it's Anthony Martial. The Frenchman has risen twice in price, has scored in both Premier League games to start the season, is playing out-of-position as a listed midfielder starting in a Forward's position, and is reasonably priced given the climate of the game right now.

The only downside is that Martial doesn't command many, if any, set-pieces at the club, otherwise we'd be looking at an absolute lock.

Man United offer points across the pitch this week with Crystal Palace visiting town. Palace are one of only two teams who haven't scored in either of their first league games, and they've simply not given any inspiring signs that they'll cause Man United many problems this weekend, making Martial and Rashford the hot favourites to extend their good starts to the FPL season.

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 3: Dark Horse Captain

Player: Roberto Firmino (LIV)

Position: Forward

Fixture: Arsenal (H)

Player Price: £9.5 million

Player Selection %: 11.4%

Reason for selection:

The dark horse captaincy pick was always going to be in the Liverpool and Arsenal game this weekend, with one prime suspect coming to attention. It's the third cog of Liverpool's front three, Roberto Firmino, who is the one to watch in this fixture.

Firmino has a stellar record against Arsenal, scoring 8 league goals in 5 matches against The Gunners, with The Brazilian scoring a hat-trick in a 5-1 win last season at Anfield.

The £9.5m attacker has started the season in fine form, providing a goal and an assist in Liverpool's opening games. Liverpool at home against any team is a fixture to bank on, but there's just something about Arsenal and poor defending that make this fixture a potential FPL goldmine of points.

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 3: Differential Captain

Player: Gerard Deulofeu (WAT)

Position: Forward

Fixture: West Ham (H)

Player Price: £6.4 million -

Player Selection %: 4.2%

Reason for selection:

The start of the season hasn’t been good to Watford, they have lost back-to-back matches to Brighton and Everton without scoring a goal. You’re probably thinking why we have selected the Spaniard as our differential captain, and that is because of who is visiting them this week. West Ham have only drawn one game so far, and this fixture is a battle of who wants their first win of the season. Surely, something must give for Watford in this fixture. A team can’t be in bad form forever, so it is down to the law of diminishing returns that there is a clock that is running down the time for when the Hornets get their first goal of the season.

The good news for Watford is that they have a home game to right their wrongs so far this season. If there was any team in the league that you would be thankful for having in a slump it would be West Ham. Deulofeu is an obvious player in this match to make something happen as West Ham do not cope well with players dribbling past their defence, which hasn’t changed over the summer. This fixture is a differential match like none other as both teams are stacked of ‘maybe’ options.

Not many people will be looking at this fixture for returns, which suits us fine as we are deep diving this fixture for one team to get their first win of the season, and we are favouring Watford to surprise everyone and react to two losses. Deulofeu has everything to hurt the Hammers defence, and because he has dropped in price it would be typical if he started providing returns now that he is out of people’s teams.

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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