Rob Reid with his FPL gameweek 15 player picks

Contributors, Fantasy Premier League

With the GW15 deadline on Tuesday here’s an early Rob Reid with his FPL gameweek 15 player picks to help you decide on transfers for your team. Rob has finished 3 of the last 5 seasons in the top 0.5% of FPL managers.

Rob Reid with his FPL gameweek 15 player picks




Hi everyone and welcome to Player Picks!

After the success of the previous 2 seasons, Player Picks is back again for 2019-2020 with a fairly similar format. I’ve decided to pare back the stats from previous weeks picks so that they will just include an average for the season – hopefully this should make the article a little bit simpler. Otherwise I’ll be sticking to the same format of a Banker, Ace and Joker as I’ve followed in previous years.

As a reminder, the Banker is predominantly a fixture-based pick where I follow them for 4 weeks and average the score over that period. The Ace is a 1 week pick who I think will do well and would make an appealing Captain choice. The Joker is a differential pick with less than 10% ownership who I think might do well that week. For reference, the overall 2018-19 picks averaged as follows: Banker 5.22, Ace 6.11, Joker 4.92. Hopefully (with some help as you’ll see below) we can beat that this season. I’ll start to look at the 2019-20 averages a bit later in the season when there is more data.

This season I’m also going to add a ‘Key Fixture’ analysis to Player Picks. This is where I’ll pick one fixture for the gameweek in question which I think FPL managers should consider covering in their squad. I’ll look at previous meetings, bookies odds and form in this – it might be a fixture where we already have a Player Pick, it might not! There will still also be Twitter polls where the FFG Twitter Community have an opportunity to select players, but also new for this season is a contribution from the FFG Slack Channel where Patreon users will have chance to directly contribute to the weekly picks through the Player Picks forum. So without further ado, let’s get on with this weeks Picks!

FPL gameweek 15 player picks




Banker – Vicente Guaita – CPL (5.0m) – BOU/wat/BHA/new

A slightly left-field pick for our Banker this week, but it’s impossible to resist the defensive potential of 0.7% owned Guaita’s fixture run. The Eagles are traditionally hard to break down at Selhurst Park and on Tuesday night face a Cherries side who seem to be sliding out of form of late. This is the start of a great run for the home side – it’s GW22 before they face another of the big 6 and Roy Hodgson will be keen to ensure that his side collect plenty of points through this busy period. The only slight downside with Guaita is his 5m price tag, but this isn’t too much of step up from the likes of Pope for example, particuarly if you’re running with a 4m keeper as your second option.

Ace – Jamie Vardy – LEI (9.8m) – WAT

Vardy gets the nod for the Ace spot for the second gameweek in a row and for good reason. He’s on a hot streak at the moment having scored in his last 6 matches and for GW14 is at home to a manager-less Watford who are rooted to the foot of the Premier League. The visitors have the third worst defensive record in the division and to add to their vacant managers position, are also beset with injuries at the back and in midfield. Leicester will therefore fancy their chances of a comfortable win in this one and any goals are highly likely to involve their talismanic frontman – will it be yet another Vardy party on Wednesday night?

Joker – Dele Alli – TOT (8.5m) – man

This week’s match at Old Trafford marks a return to where it all went wrong for recently appointed Spurs manager Jose Mourinho and he’ll be keen for his new side to put one over on his previous club. Key to this will be 2.3% owned Dele Alli who under The Special One has looked a little bit more like the player who did the ‘double-double’ of over 10 goals and 10 assists in 2 consecutive seasons. What looks like a more advanced role has supplied 2 goals and an assist in his last 2 league games as well as a goal in the Champions League. At 8.5m he is quite expensive and if you’ve got some funds to spare, you may prefer to trade up to the more recently consistent Son, but if you believe that the real Dele Alli is back for good then there’s a nice differential to be had by picking him.

Key Fixture Pick – Man United v Spurs (Wednesday 730pm)

Bookies Odds
Win: Man United 13/8; Spurs 8/5; Draw 5/2
Clean Sheet: Both sides are 5/2

Selected Anytime Goalscorer Odds: Rashford 3/2; Martial 13/8; James 3/1; Kane 13/10; Alli 14/5; Son 9/4

Speaking of Jose’s return to Old Trafford, I’ve picked out this as the key fixture pick as well this week. It’s crazy to think that after providing us with so many seasoned fantasy football players over the last few seasons that neither of these sides have a player with over 20% ownership. What this means however is that there are differentials to be had, especially as both sides are not too far away from fairly favourable fixture runs.

Honours have been even over the last 2 seasons – 2 wins and 2 clean sheets apiece, but both sides have been so inconsistent that this one is very difficult to predict. United are the only side to take points off league leaders Liverpool this season and yet have been lucky to grab a point from high scoring draws against Sheffield United and Aston Villa in the last 2 weeks. Spurs have won their first 2 league matches under their new boss, but have shown defensive frailty in the last 20 minutes of both – hanging on for 3-2 wins when really the scoreline should have been more comfortable. Who knows which way this one will go!

Marcus Rashford is the form player from the home side with returns in 5 of his last 6 matches and I expect his pace to give the Spurs defence some difficulty. The same can be said of team mates James and Martial in terms of pace but not so much in terms of recent form – it will be interesting to see how they both fair this week against the attack-minded visiting full-backs. At the back, United haven’t registered a clean sheet since GW4 and this is reflected in the Bookies odds. With a trip to Ethiad following this game, this is probably isn’t a week to be bringing in a United defender!

Dele Alli has already been mentioned as this week’s Joker pick but it’s Son who is the top player form-wise with returns in his last 5 (2 goals and 5 assists across these.) At 9.8m though, he may be a tricky player to fit in especially if you’re trying to accommodate the likes of Man City and Liverpool assets across your midfield as well. Spurs are also struggling for clean sheets – just one this season in GW5 against Palace so again may be best avoided this week, but they do have a cheaper attacking full-back option in Aurier at 4.9 and a cheap playing keeper at 4.5m Gazzaniga. You’d have to think that Mourinho would get things tightened up soon. Oh and they have a certain Harry Kane who plays for them.

This is a tricky match to call prediction-wise. I got last weeks pick correct (Wolves v Sheffield United) and I’m going for the same scoreline again this week in this one – a 1-1 draw.

That’s all from me for this week on Player Picks folks – best of luck!

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