Final Word Week 9 | Supercoach EPL trades, captains, PODs


<p>Hopefully you&#8217;re enjoying the re-build of the Bolywood Bhoys week on week as we plot our route back into the top 10k &#8211; up from 19k after GW4 to 13k &#8211; my role as the tinker-man could make us up ground yet. </p>



<p>It&#8217;s a long season players!</p>



<p>All our trades from last week hit with&nbsp;<strong>van Hecke</strong>&nbsp;scoring an 11 all on the back of base-stats and not keeping a clean sheet against Newcastle, Rice scoring a 6 with a -2 for turnovers and<strong>&nbsp;Nico Gonzalez</strong>&nbsp;picking up an 8 and looking to have locked down his starting spot with Rodri cast aside. </p>



<p>Close watch on whether that changes but has a break-even of 0 next week and hopefully can build some value for us with fixtures against Villa &amp; Bournemouth coming up before Liverpool visit the Etihad.</p>



<p>Some monster scores with Reece James, Mateta, Haaland, Welbeck, Walker &amp; Gabriel all fairly well owned. </p>



<p>Add the Spurs midfield and Harry Maguire&#8217;s winner against Liverpool &#8211; it was a left-field weekend that sums up this game so well.</p>



<p>As always &#8211; I will point you to the work of Harry West on cracking the code to pricing and breakevens&nbsp;<a href="https://scplaybook.com.au/blog/2025/10/22/epl-supercoach-cracking-the-code-to-pricing-and-breakevens" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">here</a>&nbsp;for a warning at some of the most traded-in this weekend. </p>



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<p>All Chelsea&#8217;s big scorers with the exception of Cucurella are an avoid for me at the moment &#8211; that includes Acheampong, Neto, James and Robert Sanchez. </p>



<p>The Break-evens are tasty but your trust in them as footballers is the more important thing &#8211; I have little in the former three&#8217;s ability to hold onto their place in the team and build value long-term &amp; Sanchez I think could come under threat of losing his spot at some stage this season as well given the start to the campaign.</p>



<p>For my side the question marks hang over the midfield and attack&#8230; Namely in the form of&nbsp;<strong>Reijnders</strong>,&nbsp;<strong>Simons</strong>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<strong>Salah</strong>. </p>



<p>People continue to ditch Joao Pedro but he was unlucky not to score this weekend and I think has to turn given the run Chelsea have and the fact he&#8217;s still their locked down centre-forward.</p>



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<p><strong>Salah</strong>&nbsp;is the most worrying case &#8211; the United game typified the reasons he&#8217;s not been as effective this season in a Liverpool team that is beginning to plan for life without him and whether intentionally or not are not feeding him the ball as regularly. </p>



<p>Something that struck me while watching that game against United is how much the loss of Trent Alexander Arnold &amp; more pressingly, lack of replacement due to Conor Bradley &amp; Jeremie Frimpong&#8217;s loss of form entangled with their slow starts with injury this season. </p>



<p>He&#8217;s dropped about 2.3mil since I picked him up 4 weeks ago and I would probably be cutting my losses if there were more attractive options out there to replace him.</p>



<p>So, we head to the fixture where Liverpool&#8217;s is supposedly the easiest in the competition for the next 8 weeks with their visit to City the only game against a team higher than 8th &#8211; and that team is Sunderland who they face at home. A move to Cody Gakpo has crossed my mind &#8211;</p>



<p>The other option I&#8217;ve looked at is&nbsp;<strong>Morgan Rogers</strong>&nbsp;who was on the scoresheet against Spurs this weekend. Villa&#8217;s next 2 games? City (H), Liverpool (A). </p>



<p>Timing not right there despite the juicy breakeven.</p>



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<p><strong>Danny Welbeck</strong>? I&#8217;m already 2 deep with Brighton&#8217;s pair of defenders, van Hecke &amp; De Cuyper and Brighton go Utd (A), Leeds (H), Palace (A), Brentford (H), Forest (A). </p>



<p>You could talk me into it but I&#8217;m not quite there.</p>



<p><strong>Simons</strong>&nbsp;has been disappointing and I&#8217;m really struggling to see how moving Pape Sarr out of that side has helped Tottenham (although I saw the writing on the wall and traded him), they looked toothless after scoring early against Villa over the weekend and Simons is responsible for a lot of their creative play &#8211; which I expected &#8211; hence moving for him.</p>



<p>The value options in midfield I think are likely to outplay him at the moment though are almost non-existent under 6.5mil but Spurs have a difficult run so it might be time to get creative. </p>



<p>I&#8217;m wary of Ugochukwu off the back of one big score. </p>



<p>Bentancur&#8217;s fitness is consistently a concern and they&#8217;re you&#8217;re looking at players like Florentino Luis in a Burnley team that will be inconsistent.</p>



<p>So it&#8217;ll have to be a double move this week to give me some wriggle room. </p>



<p>Reijnders has showed nothing since the opening week to suggest he&#8217;s going to return to the top of the point scorers so with him out as well we&#8217;re trying to hit a keeper for the rest of the season here alongside a cash cow that can give us a Sean Longstaff-esque 3-4 week run.</p>



<p>Let&#8217;s do a dive into the top range and cash cow options at this stage for midfielders who I&#8217;m teeing up for my double change this week&#8230;</p>



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<h3 class="wp-block-heading"><strong>Gun &#8211; Options</strong></h3>



<p><strong>Jarrod Bowen&nbsp;</strong>&#8211; I&#8217;ve consistently talked on the podcast that I like the fact he&#8217;s basically the only midfield classified player who&#8217;s being used as more-or-less an out and out striker because of West Ham&#8217;s lack of depth in that position. </p>



<p>The problem is that Fullkrug is a Nuno Espirito Santo type of player &#8211; I think he&#8217;ll return Bowen to the flank and West Ham having looked dreadful at providing their attacking players with any real opportunities to get at teams. </p>



<p>Their run may lure me in though &#8211; Leeds (A), Newcastle (H), Burnley (H), B&#8217;mouth (A). Season long keeper though? </p>



<p>I have my doubts.</p>



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<p><strong>Bruno Guimaeres &#8211;&nbsp;</strong>I really like this guy and I think Newcastle are starting to move themselves into a bit of form with the Champions League win over Benfica this morning there seems a confidence about them they didn&#8217;t quite start the season with, not to mention they pushed Arsenal all the way at the end of September. </p>



<p>He&#8217;s their captain and I think he can sit around that 6-7 average with his team&#8217;s slight uptick in form because of the amount of ball he&#8217;ll have in attacking areas. </p>



<p>Not massive on base stats &#8211; but has recorded a key pass in each of his last 5 games and shots in the last 2. </p>



<p>If that continues (which it should against Fulham, West Ham &amp; Brentford) then a big score is around the corner because goals and assists are due.</p>



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<p><strong>Bruno Fernandes &#8211;&nbsp;</strong>Suddenly back in the top 10 traded ins off the back of United&#8217;s win over Liverpool and despite being a discarder earlier in the season I can understand why. </p>



<p>With the exception of the Brentford debacle he&#8217;s been outstanding with 2 goals an assist and 6 key passes in that period. </p>



<p>Maybe he doesn&#8217;t need to play further forward after all?</p>



<p><strong>Moises Caicedo&nbsp;</strong>&#8211; With Bowen, one of the more expensive options which would mean a pay-off with our cashie. </p>



<p>He&#8217;s up to 23% ownership and you can understand why given his performances on both side of the ball and locked down spot in Chelsea&#8217;s team. </p>



<p>Their upcoming run is tasty too&#8230; (hence my reluctance to let go of Joao Pedro) &#8211; Sunderland (H), Spurs (A), Wolves (H), Burnley (A) &#8211; two promoted teams and one in Wolves who I expect to be relegated this season. That&#8217;s without scoring a goal himself outside the Liverpool game.</p>



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



<p><strong>Lesley Ugochukwu&nbsp;</strong>&nbsp;&#8211; Like many of these he&#8217;s unproven and likely only has a two-week turnaround time which if that&#8217;s your go &#8211; great &#8211; but Arsenal in the 2nd week means their &#8216;might&#8217; be a third big score against Wolves at Molineux but that&#8217;s it. </p>



<p>I think there&#8217;s some guys out there at the moment that can score and build your squad value over the next month.</p>



<p><strong>Mason Mount&nbsp;</strong>&nbsp;&#8211; Without wanting to hold up a mirror into the past &#8211; this guy was one of the highest rated players in England in the early 2020s and would have been the 9th highest scorer in both 20-21 &amp; 21-22. </p>



<p>Since then injury has hit and his run in the Manchester United team has never been consistent BUT&#8230; Now seemingly back to full health and playing in a similar (if not identical) system to the one used by Thomas Tuchel when he won player of the year for the Blues. </p>



<p>I&#8217;m not saying he&#8217;ll reach that level but can he thrive for the next month or two where United&#8217;s run looks fairly soft? </p>



<p>I think so.</p>



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<p><strong>Ryan Christie&nbsp;</strong>&#8211; gee I like watching him &#8211; and at 4.9mil with a -1 break even heading into a clash with Nottingham Forest he&#8217;s very attractive in a Bournemouth side that are producing well enough. </p>



<p>If you go with Caicedo or Bowen as your gun &#8211; he&#8217;s the best option out there providing you have enough cash for both.</p>



<p><strong>Nico Gonzalez</strong>&nbsp;&#8211; City&#8217;s run isn&#8217;t the prettiest for the next 3 weeks but he&#8217;s a rusted on starter with a Break Even of 0. </p>



<p>Even if he&#8217;s sitting on your bench he could be a nice little 2 week trade in.</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading"><strong>Gameweek 9 Strategy</strong></h3>



<p>I&#8217;ve outlined my reasoning for the big moves in midfield and the reluctance to move either of my under-performing forwards. </p>



<p>Salah particularly is walking a very fine tight-rope. </p>



<p>If anyone has earned that leeway it&#8217;s him.</p>



<p>Midfield is the place to target PODs and that&#8217;s where we&#8217;re going. </p>



<p>As I write this on Wednesday ahead of the podcast record tomorrow &#8211; I&#8217;m leaning toward Guimares and Mount as the moves due to their runs and the fact I think I&#8217;ll need a season long keeper with the potential to explode. </p>



<p>I&#8217;m backing my ability to ID a guy who is showing signs he&#8217;s about to hit a real purple patch and re-discover his form of two seasons ago. </p>



<p>Similar thinking re: Mount, although we&#8217;re looking a bit further back in history for that proven Premier League record.</p>



<p>In terms of captaincy &#8211; Everton&#8217;s Monday morning kick-off against Spurs means we have a double shot.</p>



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<p>Haaland in the initial captaincy slot and we&#8217;ll take a proper flyer on Guimaraes for the VC spot on Saturday Night. </p>



<p>There&#8217;s half a thought about giving it to Joao Pedro but I need to see him hit the back of the net and even the one goal probably doesn&#8217;t see me take the armband off Haaland the following night. </p>



<p>Sunderland are playing better than most thought they would be at this stage of the season and that game&#8217;s a real banana skin for the Blues at Stamford Bridge.</p>


Final Word Week 9 | Supercoach EPL trades, captains, PODs

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