Final Word Week 12 | Supercoach EPL trades, captains, PODs


<p>Welcome back &#8211; hope you&#8217;ve enjoyed what was a wild and wonderful international break, and for those of you with Scottish heritage, jump right on that tartan bandwagon. </p>



<p>As for the Prem&#8230; Probably a few felt they needed a week off after what was a fairly low-scoring round. </p>



<p>A score of 69 for the Bolywood Bhoys and a drop of only 300 spots suggests as much. </p>



<p>A reminder of how much football can swing after 159 the week before!</p>



<p>The silver lining (if you can call it that) is there was a score for Nico Gonzalez, who was left on the bench, big watch on his spot in the City line-up with Rodri close to a return &#8211; a couple more weeks to add some more cash would be nice before we move him on.</p>



<p>Elsewhere, Arsenal copping 2 goals away at Sunderland didn&#8217;t help our Saliba return &#8211; and if you&#8217;re a Gabriel owner &#8211; he&#8217;s the only high-profile injury coming out of the International Break &#8211; we broke down how Matty Jurman is spreading his cash elsewhere on this week&#8217;s podcast &#8211; make sure you go and have a listen.</p>



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<h3 class="wp-block-heading"><strong>International break recap</strong></h3>



<p>Here&#8217;s a quick wrap of all the international break performers before we get into our trade plans for this week&#8230;</p>



<p><strong>Haaland &#8211;&nbsp;</strong>only been in Europe &#8211; double against Italy in Italy &#8211; double against Estonia in Norway &#8211; the scoring form is not going anywhere any time soon.</p>



<p><strong>Van Dijk </strong>&#8211; Played two full 90s against Poland and Lithuania for the Netherlands &#8211; his price is as low as it will go heading into a clash with Nottingham Forest this weekend, even with a BE of 7. </p>



<p>5.2mil it&#8217;s time to jump in.</p>



<p><strong>Van de Ven </strong>&#8211; Played the first game for the Netherlands against Poland (at left-back) &#8211; before getting a rest against Lithuania. </p>



<p>If you&#8217;ve got faith &#8211; best of luck &#8211; but as we&#8217;ve discussed on the podcast, I&#8217;m low on Spurs defence at the moment, and if you&#8217;re thinking about moving to a more consistent defensive option, now is the time with his price at the peak.</p>



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<p><strong>Salah &#8211; </strong>been in the UAE playing friendlies against Uzbekistan &amp; Cape Verde &#8211; didn’t play vs Cape Verde, meaning he&#8217;ll be good to go this weekend against Forest.</p>



<p><strong>Fernandes &#8211; </strong>didn’t play against Ireland &#8211; scored a hat-trick against Armenia. </p>



<p>Probably the premium midfielder in the competition at the moment.</p>



<p><strong>Cucurella &#8211; </strong>2 full 90s against Georgia and Turkiye &#8211; assist in the 2nd game. </p>



<p>Has had a slightly longer trip than most in Europe to Tbilisi but a safer move for a defender than some around the same price at the moment in teammate Malo Gusto.</p>



<p><strong>Saliba- </strong>played full 90 for France against Ukraine &#8211; rested for win over Azerbaijan &#8211; will start unless injured until the return of Gabriel.</p>



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<p><strong>Rodri &#8211; </strong>didn’t travel with Spain &#8211; expected to be fit for the game against Newcastle, but with Gonzalez&#8217;s form unlikely to break straight back into the team. </p>



<p>If you&#8217;ve held as many have, there&#8217;s likely more pressing issues elsewhere currently, and you&#8217;re safe to let him ride out this wave of games on the bench because he&#8217;ll need to be used as we get into the busy December period. </p>



<p>The first mid-week round arrives in GW14 &#8211; so it&#8217;s worth holding until then at least.</p>



<p><strong>Calafiori &#8211; </strong>didn’t feature for Italy’s World Cup Qualifiers with a hip problem &#8211; Gunners expect him to be available for the game against Newcastle. </p>



<p>I&#8217;m very keen to have him in my team at some stage over the next couple of weeks, but I want to see him fit and running out 90 minutes before making that move.</p>



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<p><strong>Gabriel &#8211; </strong>As mentioned on the top and on the podcast &#8211; he was forced off in the first half of a friendly against Senegal and hasn&#8217;t been sighted since. </p>



<p>Expected to be out for 6-8 weeks.</p>



<p><strong>Joao Pedro &#8211;&nbsp;</strong>travelled for Brazil&#8217;s two games in the UAE but only played 25 mins against Senegal… good to go for Chelsea at Turf Moor against Burnley.</p>



<p><strong>Timber &#8211;</strong> injured by a bad tackle against Lithuania &#8211; has got a deep cut on his leg… 50/50 to play on Sunday Morning against Spurs. </p>



<p>Certainly not a buy this week.</p>



<p><strong>Mbeumo &#8211; </strong>only played the 1 game because Cameroon were knocked out by DR Congo…<strong> </strong>will be well rested heading into United&#8217;s game with Everton on Tuesday Morning.</p>



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<p><strong>English players &#8211;</strong></p>



<p><strong>Declan Rice</strong> was the only major name to start both friendlies against Albania and Serbia, but was substituted just after the hour mark in both games. </p>



<p>Expect him to be straight back into the Arsenal side to take on Tottenham this weekend &#8211; he&#8217;s a potential rotation risk as some Arsenal midfielders (think Odegaard) begin to work their way back to full fitness over the next few weeks.</p>



<p><strong>Eze and Bowen</strong> played minutes against Albania but have a longer turnaround than most other European nations who played later in the week.</p>



<p><strong>James, Rogers, and </strong>Saka all played vs Serbia &#8211; again, that was last week, so longer than usual rest for all of them.</p>



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



<p>I&#8217;ve toyed with the thought of using one of my 5 remaining boosts this week after 2 weeks of no trades &#8211; but I&#8217;ve settled on just holding for another week of information gathering heading into the first mid-week Round at the start of December.</p>



<p>So, it&#8217;s time to go for Quilindischy Hartman, who has been phenomenal, but I can&#8217;t see Burnley continuing their strong start to the season, and Van Dijk at 5.2mil is too good for me to turn up with Liverpool heading into a fairly soft run of fixtures.</p>



<p>In midfield &#8211; Mason Mount got on the pitch locking in his small rise &#8211; not as much cash gained as I was hoping for but we cut our losses and get a significant upgrade in the form of Dominik Szoboszlai who is locked into the centre of Liverpool&#8217;s midfield on that same good run and seemingly having escaped Arne Slot&#8217;s bright idea of playing him at right-back (where he was still performing strongly).</p>



<p>That sets our midfield up for the foreseeable future &#8211; with Guimaraes, Rice, and Szoboszlai. </p>



<p>From there, we can begin to focus on the forwards with Pedro running low on form and Salah set to depart for the African Cup of Nations before Christmas.</p>



<p>Hartmann OUT Van Dijk IN</p>



<p>Mount OUT Szobozslai IN</p>



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



<p>Easy loop with Everton and Harry Tyrer playing on Tuesday Morning against Manchester United.</p>



<p>VC: Haaland (v Newcastle)</p>



<p>C: Rice (v Spurs)</p>


Final Word Week 12 | Supercoach EPL trades, captains, PODs

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