EPL Supercoach | Elite vs Exposed, the Fixture-Adjusted Truth

Nine weeks in, raw stats are lying to you.



A team facing Burnley, West Ham, and Sunderland will look defensively solid. 



Throw them against City and Liverpool?



Exposed. I&#8217;ve benchmarked every team&#8217;s npxG (expected goals) against opposition quality to separate overachievers from pretenders.&nbsp;



<ul>
<li>npxG measures attacking threat &#8211; high is good&nbsp;</li>



<li>npxG Allowed measures defensive vulnerability &#8211; low is good&nbsp;</li>



<li>The +/- column shows who&#8217;s genuinely elite versus who&#8217;s riding an easy run</li>



<li>Fixtures shows the average npxG of their next six opponents &#8211; tells you if the run gets easier or harder</li>
</ul>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">The Attackers</h2>



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<h3 class="wp-block-heading">The Real Deal</h3>



Crystal Palace



That +5.0 difference shows elite chance creation. 



Palace have only scored 12 goals so far, but when they convert properly &#8211; like the 3 against Bournemouth &#8211; you see what&#8217;s possible. 



Next six fixtures average 12.2 npxG Allowed. 



When the conversion clicks, absolute scenes incoming.



You need Palace assets desperately.



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Jean-Philippe Mateta (£11.04m) &#8211; If you own him, you&#8217;re laughing to the bank while the rest of us find cash out of thin air. 



Central striker in a flying attack with dream fixtures.



Ismaïla Sarr (£8.97m) &#8211; More affordable, scores more in base stats, just less central. 



Was scoring for fun before injury, then what he did to Liverpool in the cup. 



Buying him today.



Daniel Muñoz (£12.16m) &#8211; Expensive but those attacking stats plus defensive work? 



Underpriced for these fixtures. 



Legit captain shout.



Manchester United



We Supercoach managers don&#8217;t care about United&#8217;s results. 



We want points for our attackers (sorry United fans).



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Bryan Mbeumo (£10.75m) &#8211; Coming off 25 points last week and looking like prime Mo Salah. 



The play right now.



Bruno Fernandes (£9.47m) &#8211; Base stats, penalties, attacking returns everywhere. 



Scored 11 last week with no goals or assists. 



That&#8217;s his floor. Imagine what&#8217;s coming.



Arsenal



Prioritise Arsenal defence over attack, but Eberechi Eze (£8.78m) is still cheap with a low breakeven after his 18-pointer. 



Don&#8217;t sleep on value when it&#8217;s staring at you.



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<h3 class="wp-block-heading">The Pretenders</h3>



The Bottom Feeders



West Ham (-3.6), Burnley (-3.9), Sunderland (-4.8) &#8211; all cooked. 



Not thinking about any attackers from these teams.



Aston Villa



Would&#8217;ve shocked you in GW1.



Easy fixtures, massive underperformance (-3.0), now facing a brutal run (9.6 npxG Allowed). 



Avoid completely.



Tottenham



Had easy fixtures, still underperformed (-1.3). Now facing harder opposition (10.0 npxG Allowed). 



Not the elite attack you think it is.



Manchester City



Not pretenders &#8211; one of the best attacks going around (+4.4). 



But fixtures get significantly harder (9.5 npxG Allowed &#8211; toughest upcoming run).



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Not trading Erling Haaland (£16.39m), but he&#8217;s not auto-captain for the next six weeks. 



Still elite, just needs more thought week-to-week. 



Ditch Tijjani Reijnders (£6.63m) though &#8211; minutes have dried up. 



Glad I jumped off earlier.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">The Defenders</h2>



<figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="385" height="510" src="https://blog.scplaybook.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-5.png" alt="" class="wp-image-2402994" srcset="https://blog.scplaybook.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-5.png 385w, https://blog.scplaybook.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-5-226x300.png 226w" sizes="(max-width: 639px) 98vw, (max-width: 1199px) 64vw, 385px" /></figure>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">The Real Deal</h3>



Arsenal



Arsenal. 



Arsenal. 



Arsenal.



They&#8217;re my team yet I only own David Raya (£8.29m) and William Saliba (£7.09m, injured). 



This is why I can&#8217;t crack the top 1k.



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Gabriel Magalhães (£14.22m) is a set piece machine. 



Jurriën Timber (£11.35m) plays 90 every week. 



Riccardo Calafiori (£8.62m) is incredible value. 



Pick any two and sleep well.



Over 50% clean sheet chance this week. 



Am I a bad fan if I want Burnley to score?



Newcastle



Second-best defensive record, yet I&#8217;ve barely seen anyone with Newcastle defenders. 



Criminal.



Tasty game against West Ham this week. 



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Dan Burn (£9.44m) is the play if you&#8217;ve got the cash. 



Hard when Arsenal face Burnley though.



Leeds



There&#8217;s method to my Joe Rodon (£8.54m) and Jayden Bogle (£5.61m) double-up. 



They&#8217;re actually decent (-1.4 against easy fixtures).



Was devastated when they conceded late last week &#8211; thought the clean sheet was in the bag. 



Tough run coming (11.9 npxG) so I&#8217;m jumping off one in the next few weeks. 



Not urgent yet.



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Sunderland



Outperformed their easy fixtures (-0.6), but that upcoming run is brutal (12.4 npxG). 



Take your profit and get around Arsenal instead.



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">The Pretenders</h3>



The Bottom Three



Burnley (15.9 npxG Allowed), West Ham, Forest &#8211; relegation-level defending. 



Not even thinking about defenders from these teams.



Chelsea



This surprised me. +2.0 means they&#8217;re leaking chances even against average attacks.



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I&#8217;m doubled up with Marc Cucurella (£8.75m) and Reece James (£10.45m). 



At least they attack and have good fixtures (9.9 npxG). 



Won&#8217;t keep this structure long after these fixtures though.



Manchester United



Buy their attackers. 



Their defence (+2.3) is relegation-worthy. 



Absolute shambles.



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Tottenham



I ditched Micky van de Ven (£8.90m) and Pedro Porro (£7.71m) in the last two weeks. 



Their defence is a pretender (+0.8).



Yep, I missed out on 58 points from them last week. 



Not salty at all. 



Bloody Spurs.



If you&#8217;re holding Spurs defenders thinking they&#8217;re set-and-forget, reconsider. 



The breakeven is nice, but it&#8217;s fooled me once this year. 



Don&#8217;t make the same mistake.



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<h2 class="wp-block-heading">My Trades This Week</h2>



Right, the shopping list: Muñoz, Gabriel, Timber, Sarr, Mateta, and Mbeumo.



That&#8217;s possible, right?



The easy move: Kudus (£9.10m) to Sarr. 



Done.



The harder moves: Getting Mateta or Mbeumo requires proper downgrades elsewhere. 



Not simple sideways trades &#8211; actual structural changes.



Giving Rodon a week to bank cash, then pivoting him to Muñoz. 



Who I hope drops in value before then. (He won&#8217;t. Watch him pop off for 20+ this week.)



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This week&#8217;s play: Can&#8217;t loop, so I&#8217;m looping Sarr as his welcome gift into Haaland.



The verdict: Palace and United attackers, Arsenal defenders &#8211; these are the teams to own. 



City&#8217;s fixtures get harder but they&#8217;re still elite. 



And if you&#8217;re holding Spurs or Chelsea defenders thinking they&#8217;re set-and-forget? 



The numbers say otherwise.

EPL Supercoach | Elite vs Exposed, the Fixture-Adjusted Truth

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