EPL Supercoach Strategy Talk | Stop playing safe


<h3 class="wp-block-heading"><strong>A Rank Jump I&#8217;ll Never Forget</strong></h3>



<p>I was in a Bangkok shopping mall, struggling through something far too spicy for my taste buds, when I came across FPL_Brandon&#8217;s tweet on correlated variance in FPL. </p>



<p>Gameweek 13 was a popular Free Hit week with a clear template: 3× Villa, 3× Brentford, 3× City, maybe a couple from Liverpool or Palace. </p>



<p>The consensus was spreading players across positions from each team &#8211; one defender, one mid, one forward. </p>



<p>Safe. Sensible. Boring.</p>



<p>It flipped my thinking. </p>



<p>Instead of spreading, I went 3× Villa defenders and 3× Brentford mids/attackers.</p>



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<p>Villa kept a clean sheet. Brentford didn&#8217;t. </p>



<p>I had Dango when almost nobody else did &#8211; he returned a goal and an assist. </p>



<p>I went from 140k to 7k overall rank thanks to a weekly rank of 92, easily my best ever.</p>



<p>Was I lucky? Yes &#8211; Villa should have conceded, and Brentford were unlucky to let in a goal. </p>



<p>However, I put myself in a position to get lucky. </p>



<p>This got me thinking about Supercoach EPL.</p>



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<h3 class="wp-block-heading"><strong>Why Supercoach EPL Changes the Game</strong></h3>



<p>Supercoach EPL operates under completely different rules to FPL, and that changes everything about defensive stacking.</p>



<p><strong>No Team Restrictions</strong></p>



<p>FPL caps you at three players per team. </p>



<p>Supercoach has no such restriction.</p>



<p>If you want to run 5× Arsenal players, nobody&#8217;s stopping you. </p>



<p>This opens up stacking opportunities that simply don&#8217;t exist in FPL.</p>



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<p><strong>The Budget Surplus Problem</strong></p>



<p>Right now, everyone in Supercoach EPL is sitting on massive budgets. </p>



<p>Price rises have inflated team values across the board. </p>



<p>You don&#8217;t need to find value anymore &#8211; you can just pick the best players from the best teams without sacrificing elsewhere. </p>



<p>When you&#8217;re not constrained by budget, why wouldn&#8217;t you load up on Arsenal&#8217;s backline or City attackers?</p>



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<p><strong>Clean Sheets Aren&#8217;t Zero-Sum</strong></p>



<p>In AFL and NRL Supercoach, attack is often zero-sum within a team. </p>



<p>When one winger scores, it frequently means the other winger didn&#8217;t. </p>



<p>They&#8217;re competing for the same opportunities.</p>



<p>Defence operates completely differently. </p>



<p>When Arsenal keeps a clean sheet, all your Arsenal defenders benefit. </p>



<p>They succeed or fail together &#8211; there&#8217;s no internal competition. </p>



<p>This correlation is the entire point of the strategy.</p>



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<h3 class="wp-block-heading"><strong>The Maths: Why Triple Stacking Actually Works</strong></h3>



<p>Here&#8217;s the bit where I get nerdy. </p>



<p>If you just want the play, skip ahead. </p>



<p>But if you want to understand why this works, here&#8217;s the breakdown.</p>



<p>Three defenders, all cost the same, 6 points for a clean sheet. Three different approaches:</p>



<figure class="wp-block-table"><table><tbody><tr><td>Strategy</td><td>Likelihood 0 CS</td><td>Likelihood 1 CS</td><td>Likelihood 2 CS</td><td>Likelihood 3 CS</td><td>Expected Points</td></tr><tr><td>3 players, 3 different teams (30% each)</td><td>34%</td><td>44%</td><td>19%</td><td>3%</td><td>5.4</td></tr><tr><td>3 players, 1 team (30%)</td><td>70%</td><td>0%</td><td>0%</td><td>30%</td><td>5.4</td></tr><tr><td>3 players, Arsenal (40%)</td><td>60%</td><td>0%</td><td>0%</td><td>40%</td><td>7.2</td></tr></tbody></table></figure>



<p><strong>Option 1</strong> is the safe play &#8211; you&#8217;ll probably get one clean sheet most weeks. Predictable. Boring.</p>



<p><strong>Option 2</strong> is boom or bust with the same expected value. You blank 70% of the time, but when you hit, you&#8217;re getting 18 points. Notice those 0% in the middle &#8211; when you stack one team, you can&#8217;t get 1 or 2 clean sheets. It&#8217;s all or nothing.</p>



<p><strong>Option 3</strong> is where it clicks. You&#8217;re not just accepting boom or bust &#8211; you&#8217;re improving your expected value by 33% while maintaining that explosive upside. Arsenal&#8217;s 40% clean sheet odds mean you&#8217;re banking 18 points four weeks out of ten, while everyone else is scrambling for 6 clean sheet points spread across their backline.</p>



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<p>Yes, you blank 60% of the time. But you&#8217;re not playing to come 500th. </p>



<p>Arsenal have the best defence in the league. Back the best.</p>



<p><strong>Quick caveat:</strong> Clean sheets aren&#8217;t the only way defenders score points. </p>



<p>We&#8217;ve seen with Munoz how attacking stats can be just as important. </p>



<p>But with him out injured, I&#8217;m hoping to get a leg up by chasing clean sheet points while the elite attacking defender sits on the sidelines.</p>



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<h3 class="wp-block-heading"><strong>What I&#8217;m Actually Doing: 3× Arsenal Defenders</strong></h3>



<p>Here&#8217;s my setup: Raya, Timber, and Saliba. </p>



<p>Three Arsenal assets anchoring my defence.</p>



<p>My other defenders are Dias, Cucurella, and van Dijk &#8211; what I reckon are the top four teams in the league. </p>



<p>The weekly strategy is simple: play all three Arsenal defenders plus whoever has the best clean sheet odds out of City, Chelsea, or Liverpool. </p>



<p>And if Arsenal ever have a crazy hard fixture, or someone might not start, I have amazing backup &#8211; not some Burnley player. </p>



<p>This means I&#8217;m never fielding a bad defender. </p>



<p>Every week, I&#8217;m playing four elite defenders from teams with the highest probability of keeping clean sheets.</p>



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<p><strong>How&#8217;s it going?</strong></p>



<p>Not great, if I&#8217;m being honest.</p>



<p>Arsenal conceded a late goal to Wolves. How? </p>



<p>I had Dias (15) and van Dijk (13) sitting on my bench watching the show. </p>



<p>And to top it off, I traded out Rogers (24) instead of Woltemade (-4).</p>



<p>Week one of this strategy kind of sucked, and I slid down the rankings. </p>



<p>But this is boom or bust. </p>



<p>As long as Arsenal are as good as everyone expects them to be, I&#8217;ll end up with more points in the long term. </p>



<p>One week doesn&#8217;t change the thesis.</p>



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<p><strong>My trades this week:</strong></p>



<p>Rage trade alert &#8211; Ekitike in for Woltemade. </p>



<p>I do like Newcastle&#8217;s fixtures from GW19 onwards, but I just can&#8217;t stare at that -4 any longer. </p>



<p>Sometimes you need to move on.</p>



<p>KDH is out for 4-6 weeks. </p>



<p>What a hero he&#8217;s been, but being injured means he&#8217;s gone. </p>



<p>Going to Rice, Cherki, or O&#8217;Reilly &#8211; haven&#8217;t decided yet.</p>



<p>This leaves my team looking absolutely stacked. </p>



<p>Only Cucurella, Minteh, Xhaka, and Fernandes aren&#8217;t coming from Arsenal, City, or Liverpool. And honestly? </p>



<p>This game is simple &#8211; pick good players from good teams.</p>



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



<p>You&#8217;ve got the budget surplus. Use it. </p>



<p>Stack the best defence in the league and accept you&#8217;ll cop it some weeks. </p>



<p>The maths works over time, but only if you commit to it.</p>



<p>Stop playing it safe. </p>



<p>Back Arsenal&#8217;s defence three times over and ride the variance. </p>



<p>You&#8217;re not here to finish mid-table.</p>


EPL Supercoach Strategy Talk | Stop playing safe

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