Final Word Week 22 | Supercoach EPL trades, captains, PODs


<p>A really solid GW21 score of 124 meant I was able to sit back and watch the FA Cup action over the weekend relatively stress free and keep my fingers crossed that no major injuries eventuated. </p>



<p>That happened to be the case &#8211; so we move into the meat and bones of the second half of the season with our heads held relatively high and plenty of value to be identified in players coming back from AFCON, along with some double gameweeks to target toward the end of the year.</p>



<p>The Bolywood Bhoys sit at 6k with scores now as consistent as they&#8217;ve been throughout the season and if, like me you have trades in the bank there&#8217;s a real shot to improve your standing if you can stay patient as European Football returns and teams begin to fall away in the cups. </p>



<p>The next FA Cup weekend falls on the 14th-15th Feb &amp; we&#8217;ll know the Carabao Cup Finalists by then.</p>



<p>Given we&#8217;ll have to wait that long though &#8211; holding is pretty one size fits all advice unless across the board 1) you can&#8217;t field 11 players consistently or 2) have a lot of cash go down with a long term injury (even this has a caveat though as all Bruno Fernandes holders will tell you)</p>



<p>Even if you&#8217;ve been relatively disciplined &#8211; chances are, like the Bolywood Bhoys you&#8217;re sitting around the 1 trade a week mark from here and if you&#8217;ve read Harry West&#8217;s article this week (<a href="https://scplaybook.com.au/blog/2026/01/15/epl-supercoach-the-cup-chaos-guide" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">which you can find here</a>) you&#8217;ll know that isn&#8217;t enough to carry you through the chaos of the cups that will befall us in the closing weeks of the season. </p>



<p>Thankfully we still have 4 boosts in the bank.</p>



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<h3 class="wp-block-heading"><strong>Gameweek 22 Trade Plans</strong></h3>



<p>As mentioned on the podcast though I have a few stragglers that in an ideal world I&#8217;d be moving on&#8230;</p>



<p><strong>Riccardo Calafiori</strong>&nbsp;hasn&#8217;t played in Arsenal&#8217;s last 5 matches and Mikel Arteta signalled this week that there&#8217;s a week or two left before he&#8217;ll even be considered. I have 4 other fit defenders though &amp; a sideways trade to Timber when William Saliba is back to fitness doesn&#8217;t make sense with only 16 trades remaining for the rest of the season.</p>



<p><strong>Victor Lindelof&nbsp;</strong>has, as expected, lost his place to Pau Torres on his return from injury but is sitting on a BE of -4 and is a good chance of seeing the pitch in the next couple of busy weeks. My preferred replacement, Dan Burn &#8211; is 2-3 weeks away from returning from a broken rib. The alternatives? Ezri Konza, Marc Guehi &amp; the suspended Marc Cucurella. I&#8217;ll wait another week at least.</p>



<p><strong>Jarrod Bowen&nbsp;</strong>is locked into West Ham&#8217;s starting XI as long as he&#8217;s fit in a wide attacking role where despite their struggles &#8211; he&#8217;s still managed to average 7.9. A better player at a comparitive price &#8211; Granit Xhaka is the beginning and end of the list. You could convince me with more trades &#8211; I need to be in love to make the move now.</p>



<p><strong>Dominik Szoboszlai&nbsp;</strong>the returns could be better &#8211; but Burnley, Bournemouth &amp; Newcastle (at Anfield) in their next 3 bode well, particularly if you see how unlucky he&#8217;s been over the last couple of weeks. Arsenal last time out was the first time he&#8217;d failed to record a Key Pass &amp; an accurate cross in the same game all season. With Ekitike back &#8211; some of those chances will start getting snapped up again.</p>



<p>If you&#8217;re desperate to make a trade the top options strike me as&#8230;</p>



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<p><strong>Defenders</strong></p>



<p>Value &#8211; WAIT! For&nbsp;<strong>Cucurella (5.5mil)</strong>&nbsp;to come back from suspension in a week&#8217;s time&#8230; Even better, wait 2 weeks and he&#8217;ll have bottomed out around 4mil ahead of games against West Ham and Wolves.</p>



<p>Gun &#8211;&nbsp;<strong>Tarkoswski (10.6mil)&nbsp;</strong>&#8211; assuming you&#8217;ve stacked your backline with Arsenal players like me &#8211; you need to start manoeuvering to cover them and there is no bigger base stats monster than this guy. The run after Aston Villa this week looks ripe with clean sheet opportunity as well.</p>



<p><strong>Midfielders</strong></p>



<p>Value &#8211;&nbsp;<strong>Mitoma (6.8mil)&nbsp;</strong>&#8211; he&#8217;s back from injury and dribbling past defenders for fun again &#8211; scored against City last week and now faces Bournemouth, Fulham, Everton &amp; Palace in the next month. Rested in the cup win against United on the weekend which says to me that he&#8217;s a firm part of Fabian Huerzler&#8217;s first team plans again.</p>



<p>Gun &#8211; <strong>Harry Wilson (11.4mil) </strong>I have picked about one midfielder correctly this season and I&#8217;m kicking myself for waving SC Playbook Skipper Tim Williams away from him when he through him up on the pod a few weeks ago. It&#8217;s not too late though! Leeds, Brighton, United in the next 3&#8230; All have looked leaky at the back and Fulham are set to have Alex Iwobi return from AFCON next weekend. Another forward player for him to link up with.</p>



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<p><strong>Forwards</strong></p>



<p>Value &#8211; Can&#8217;t find a good one of these for the life of me at the moment&#8230; Hence my holding of&nbsp;<strong>Woltemade</strong>&nbsp;who looked set to lose his starting spot to Wissa two weeks ago and&nbsp;<strong>Mateta</strong>&nbsp;who seems completely out of form.</p>



<p><strong>Welbeck</strong>? Not starting consistently&#8230;&nbsp;<strong>Jimenez</strong>? Probably loses his spot to&nbsp;<strong>Chukwueze</strong>&nbsp;when he returns next week&#8230;&nbsp;<strong>Evanilson</strong>? I mean have you watched him?&nbsp;<strong>Kroupi</strong>? Often overlooked in favour of Evanilson which tells you all you need to know.&nbsp;<strong>Hwang?&nbsp;</strong>Like him as a player but I can&#8217;t bring in a Wolves forward even off the back of 6 goals against the might of Shrewsbury.</p>



<p>Leave your comments! I&#8217;m out of ideas.</p>



<p>Gun &#8211; <strong>Igor Thiago (11.4mil) </strong>&#8211; just do it &#8211; and then hold him for the rest of the season. </p>



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



<p>Haaland vs United is a safe bet &#8211; and being the opening game of the weekend there&#8217;s a nice easy captaincy loop should he somehow fail.</p>



<p>Newcastle assets against Wolves must be favoured although the league&#8217;s bottom side have looked slightly less disastrous of late. If you want to go safe &#8211; Arsenal&#8217;s backline against Forest are an option. It&#8217;s good old Guimaraes for me though Clive.</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading"><strong>Molch&#8217;s Trade</strong>s and skippers</h3>



<p>Trades: None</p>



<p>VC: Haaland</p>



<p>C: Guimaraes</p>


Final Word Week 22 | Supercoach EPL trades, captains, PODs

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