Final Word Week 5 | Supercoach EPL trades, captains, PODs


<p>A high-scoring weekend across the board &amp; <strong>Erling Haaland</strong>&#8216;s double, along with captaincy, has kept the Bolywood Bhoys sitting steady and poised to pounce on some falling prices across the board. </p>



<p>As always, we think about what could have been, and <strong>Tijani Reijnders</strong> bombing a fairly straightforward chance late on was one of those moments. </p>



<p>I&#8217;ll speak more on his performance with Garby in the podcast this week, but he&#8217;s baffling me slightly. </p>



<p>Takes up the right positions, fits Pep&#8217;s system beautifully when he&#8217;s playing well, but has 20-30 minute periods where he can&#8217;t hit a 5-yard pass as he did to start the game against United. </p>



<p>A hold for now, and City&#8217;s fixture eases off slightly in the month after the game against Arsenal this weekend. If he&#8217;s not making money by then &#8211; the trade button might get pushed.</p>



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<p>If <strong>Mo Salah</strong> could do us non-owners a favour and stop scoring in stoppage time we&#8217;d be sitting very pretty indeed &#8211; alas, Mo is Mo &#8211; Liverpool are top with 100% record despite a huffing and puffing performance against 10-man Burnley. </p>



<p>Some will call me silly given their depth, but I need to see marked improvements for them to win the league this year &#8211; all 4 wins have taken goals in the last 10 minutes to win &#8211; that said, it&#8217;s getting close to decision time for non-owners on Salah with the Reds fixture looking fairly straightforward until Christmas from here. </p>



<p>That said, Salah&#8217;s Break-even is still at 24 this weekend, meaning there&#8217;s a further price drop likely on the way. </p>



<p>It&#8217;s time to start getting some money in the cap to bring him in.</p>



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<p>City&#8217;s 3-0 win in the Manchester Derby came without them playing particularly well, and Ruben Amorim&#8217;s insistence on playing <strong>Bruno Fernandes</strong> as a withdrawn midfielder isn&#8217;t doing owners any favours as we cop another little price drop this week. </p>



<p>United&#8217;s draw does ease off slightly after the clashes with Chelsea and Liverpool in the next month. </p>



<p>November looks like our time to make a decision one way or the other with the Portuguese star &#8211; particularly as Ruben Amorim might be looking at a miracle to hold onto his job if they can&#8217;t turn the tide, and that would surely lead to him being played back in his favoured No.10 role.</p>



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<p>There were some questions around my pushing of <strong>Pape Sarr</strong> last week, but as expected, the rotation is happening elsewhere with <strong>Xavi Simons</strong> starting on the wing (and looking a quality addition) with Bentancur &amp; Palinha rotating through their two games this week. </p>



<p>Sarr&#8217;s goal was a nice little addition.</p>



<p>I would keep an eye on Spurs team sheet this week, but I expect him to be named and then rested against Doncaster in mid-week.</p>



<p><strong>Joao Pedro</strong> retained his spot up front for Chelsea, and the slightly lethargic performance I think we can put down to the flight back from South America&#8230; </p>



<p>Man United looks there for the taking this weekend if they don&#8217;t seriously improve. </p>



<p>Nice to see <strong>Cole Palmer</strong> back fit and firing, I can only doff my cap if you were patient enough to keep him &#8211; he&#8217;s certainly a hold for now &#8211; pending how he pulls through the game on Thursday Morning against Bayern Munich.</p>



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<p></p>



<p>West Ham and Forest increasingly looking like avoids across the board &#8211; I was never particularly high on Everton and the Grealish Dewsbury-Hall pile-in&#8230; </p>



<p>If you haven&#8217;t jumped in already there this week is not the week to bring them in, given the Toffees horrendous record at Anfield where they&#8217;ve won just twice since 1999. </p>



<p>That said, they will get more space to attack than they were given against a very negative Aston Villa side on the weekend.</p>



<p><strong>Tino Livramento </strong>was the lowest scorer of Newcastle&#8217;s backline against a disappointing Wolves team, but showed enough to suggest he&#8217;ll continue going from strength to strength.</p>



<p>Brentford&#8217;s tough little run means it could be the end of the road for Igor Thiago, who&#8217;s done a job building a nice £2mil in the opening weeks. </p>



<p>Break even is still sitting at 0, which means it could be a move we make a week or two down the track. </p>



<p>Unless he keeps banging them in of course!</p>



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<h3 class="wp-block-heading"><strong>Gameweek 5 Trade Plans</strong></h3>



<p>Still waiting for news on <strong>Martin Odegaard&#8217;</strong>s shoulder, and with him sitting at £5.5 mil, I&#8217;m not delighted with locking in that loss in value until we have firm news through on whether surgery is the most likely option.</p>



<p>That said, <strong>Xavi Simons</strong> looked tremendous in the opening week and is sitting at £6mil with a Break Even of -2 after 1 game! </p>



<p>It might be the straightforward option to make up for my loss.</p>



<p>That&#8217;s about all in the works for this week, given I&#8217;ve double-traded in both of the last 2 weeks.</p>



<p>A watch on Quilindischy Hartman (or any Burnley defenders you own for that matter), who like Igor Thiago &#8211;  may have reached the end of their cash building tether.</p>



<p>In my side, some money in the bank still means there&#8217;s room to upgrade. </p>



<p>I think I&#8217;ll be waiting another week or two before I pull the trigger there though.</p>



<p>The other reason I&#8217;m reluctant to do more is because I&#8217;m watching how the rotations play out with European Football beginning this week.</p>



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<h3 class="wp-block-heading"><strong>Captaincy Strategy</strong></h3>



<p>I&#8217;m edging towards Bruno Fernandes as the VC Choice, as we&#8217;ll likely have a loop option in the form of Odegaard (another reason I&#8217;m reluctant to trade him this week).</p>



<p>For the captaincy, I&#8217;m downright split between Pedro and Haaland &#8211; with the big Norwegian heading to the Emirates in a City team that hasn&#8217;t found top gear just yet. </p>



<p>That said &#8211; with Saliba coming off an injury &#8211; I do wonder whether they&#8217;ll be at full strength defensively.</p>



<p>Pedro plays on Saturday Night (Aus Time) against Man Utd &#8211; so we&#8217;ll either</p>



<p>1.Kill off our chance to loop and trust Pedro to do a job against United&#8217;s ropey defence and trade Odegaard for Simons OR</p>



<p>2.Play it safe with Haaland in the captaincy role again, Pedro or Fernandes as VC with no trades made this week.</p>



<p>I&#8217;m leaning towards option 2 at the moment. </p>



<p>Odegaard&#8217;s fitness is critical to it all.</p>



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<h3 class="wp-block-heading"><strong>Watchlist</strong></h3>



<p><strong>Micky Van de Ven </strong> </p>



<p>As my defence continues it&#8217;s restructure, he looks the most straightforward option with Saliba now traded out. </p>



<p>He&#8217;s at 32% ownership, and I feel like I&#8217;m missing out. </p>



<p>Spurs have a very kind run of fixtures heading their way too. </p>



<p>Thomas Frank is showing little appetite to rotate a backline that has performed solidly to this point.</p>



<p><strong>Dan Ballard </strong></p>



<p>All reports indicate he&#8217;ll be back this week against an Aston Villa side that has yet to score in the Premier League this season. </p>



<p>A break-even of -19 means even if he doesn&#8217;t score, he&#8217;ll throw some cash your way.</p>



<p><strong>Mo Salah</strong></p>



<p>As we touched on &#8211; it&#8217;s a move you should be looking to make in the next 1-3 weeks &#8211; while Liverpool&#8217;s fixture hits a lull and his price begins to pick up again. </p>



<p>His Break Even this week is still 24, so there will likely be a discount if you&#8217;re patient enough to hang on one more week.</p>



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<h3 class="wp-block-heading"><strong>PODs</strong></h3>



<p><strong>Antoine Semenyo </strong></p>



<p>Last week it was the defenders (who I still think are solid options for mid-rangers in your backline) &#8211; this week it&#8217;s the penalty-taking, goal-scoring forward. </p>



<p>I can&#8217;t justify the price just yet, but he&#8217;s on my radar, as with everyone, as a big POD.</p>



<p><strong>Joachim Anderson </strong></p>



<p>One of the most talked about in FPL circles last year, and Fulham&#8217;s defence has been solid but not spectacular to this point. </p>



<p>The anchor is the Dane &#8211; and with Antonee Robinson still recovering from injury at a high price point &#8211; he&#8217;s the move at 6.3mil for a slightly cheaper defensive replacement or upgrade for an early-season cashie.</p>



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<h3 class="wp-block-heading"><strong>Gameweek 5 Strategy</strong></h3>



<p>Either&#8230;</p>



<p>1- No Trades </p>



<p>C: Haaland </p>



<p>VC: Pedro &#8211; Odegaard Trade Loop Option</p>



<p>2- Odegaard OUT Simons IN </p>



<p>C: Pedro </p>



<p>VC: Haaland</p>


Final Word Week 5 | Supercoach EPL trades, captains, PODs

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