EPL Supercoach | Budget GK Guide: Who to Start, Who to Loop


<p>I&#8217;ve already covered the best value defenders, midfielders and forwards. </p>



<p>Now it&#8217;s time for keepers, and this one splits into two conversations: who you could actually start under £6m, and who you should be nuffing at GK2. We&#8217;re starting with the traditional rundown.</p>



<p><strong>Lucas Perri (£3.90m) &#8211; Leeds &#8211; 19.6% owned</strong></p>



<p>Leeds have thrown up to £45m at fixing this position, and that money bought James Trafford, not more time for Perri. </p>



<p>He&#8217;s no longer a value keeper at a functional club, just a squad player at one that&#8217;s admitted he wasn&#8217;t good enough. He&#8217;s not a loop option either. If you&#8217;re still holding him, this is your trade out.</p>



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<p><strong>Antonín Kinský (£5.28m) &#8211; Tottenham &#8211; 12.0% owned</strong></p>



<p>Is he underpriced? Yes. Are Spurs going to be better this year? Also yes. </p>



<p>Do you want him starting week in, week out through Brentford, Newcastle, Forest, Everton and Villa? </p>



<p>Not really; none of those are bankable clean sheets, and Spurs shipping goals in all five wouldn&#8217;t shock you. </p>



<p>Rotating keepers, this is a play, but Supercoach isn&#8217;t built for that. It&#8217;s a no.</p>



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<p><strong>James Trafford (£4.92m) &#8211; Leeds &#8211; 11.6% owned</strong></p>



<p>The real question isn&#8217;t whether Trafford&#8217;s a good keeper; it&#8217;s whether you want double Leeds exposure. </p>



<p>Tarik Muharemovic is an absolute lock in your defence line, cheaper and scoring more than Trafford ever will. </p>



<p>Round 12 is the first time Leeds face a promoted side, so there&#8217;s no urgency to stack them twice this early. </p>



<p>Trafford signing is good news for Muharemovic&#8217;s points, but that&#8217;s as much Leeds as my Supercoach squad needs.</p>



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<p><strong>Carl Rushworth (£3.50m) &#8211; Coventry &#8211; 9.9% owned</strong></p>



<p>Starting keeper for a Coventry side that should hold up alright defensively. If you want to save money here, he&#8217;s the best of this bunch, 0.7m cheaper than Scherpen at Ipswich. </p>



<p>You&#8217;d only do it as part of a rotation strategy, though, same as Kinsky. That locks in a transfer or two on your GK line all season, not where I want to spend them. </p>



<p>This isn&#8217;t FPL, no wildcard to bail you out.</p>



<p><strong>Martin Dúbravka (£4.85m) &#8211; Tottenham &#8211; 2.7% owned</strong></p>



<p>He isn&#8217;t starting over Kinsky, and even if he was, he still wouldn&#8217;t be worth a squad spot. Trade him out.</p>



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<p><strong>Jack Butland (£4.20m) &#8211; Hull &#8211; 2.2% owned</strong></p>



<p>Hull look like one of the worst promoted sides in years, and Butland might not even start round one. </p>



<p>Target Hull for your captaincy picks against, not for anything out of their own goal.</p>



<p><strong>Illan Meslier (£3.50m) &#8211; Arsenal &#8211; 2.0% owned</strong></p>



<p>Not a starter conversation either. I had an Arsenal keeper as my nuff last year, and it was brilliant; a team you don&#8217;t often captain from is exactly the profile you want. There are safer nuffs than Meslier, though.</p>



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<h3 class="wp-block-heading"><strong>Why You Want a Keeper Who Never Plays</strong></h3>



<p>Captaincy is one of the hardest calls you make every week. So why settle for one shot at it?</p>



<p>The strategy is simple: bench your genuine, good goalkeeper and start a nuff instead &#8211; someone who&#8217;ll never see an EPL field. </p>



<p>Because your nuff never plays, the reserve rule kicks in, and your good keeper&#8217;s score comes on automatically. </p>



<p>Score negative, and they somehow won&#8217;t get subbed on, which means you&#8217;ve dodged the loss entirely.</p>



<p>From there, pick your VC from a team playing earlier in the round than your nuff. </p>



<p>If your VC dominates, move the captaincy onto the nuff instead, since a captain who never takes the field means your VC&#8217;s score doubles automatically. </p>



<p>If they flop, leave the armband on your real captain.</p>



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<h3 class="wp-block-heading"><strong>How to Pick the Perfect Nuff</strong></h3>



<p>Three rules, non-negotiable:</p>



<ul>
<li>They must never play. Don&#8217;t settle for a backup; you need the backup&#8217;s backup. Fourth in line is ideal. Bonus points if they&#8217;ve been loaned out; that&#8217;s about as guaranteed as it gets.</li>



<li>Their team plays late in the round. We don&#8217;t know the full 38-week fixture list yet, so this takes some reading between the lines.</li>



<li>Not a team you want your VC from. Don&#8217;t nuff a Man City keeper if you ever want to vice-captain Haaland; they&#8217;re in the same fixture every week, and your VC loop won&#8217;t be executable</li>
</ul>



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<h3 class="wp-block-heading"><strong>Which Teams Play Late in the Round</strong></h3>



<p>Here&#8217;s the first nine rounds. &#8220;Loopable&#8221; means the keeper plays after Saturday&#8217;s games, so Sunday or Monday.</p>



<p>The Saturday 3pm UK slot is where you want your VC playing, early enough that you&#8217;ve seen the result before anything else locks in. </p>



<p>That leaves late Saturday (if you&#8217;re brave enough to wake up) or Sunday as your window for GK and true Captain, so you can make the swap call.</p>



<figure class="wp-block-table"><table><tbody><tr><td>Club</td><td>Europe</td><td>Loopable of 9</td></tr><tr><td>Manchester United</td><td>UCL</td><td>6</td></tr><tr><td>Newcastle United</td><td></td><td>5</td></tr><tr><td>AFC Bournemouth</td><td>UEL</td><td>4</td></tr><tr><td>Arsenal</td><td>UCL</td><td>4</td></tr><tr><td>Leeds United</td><td></td><td>4</td></tr><tr><td>Liverpool</td><td>UCL</td><td>4</td></tr><tr><td>Fulham</td><td></td><td>4</td></tr><tr><td>Brighton</td><td>UECL (unconfirmed, playoff, 2 legs vs Tromso)</td><td>4</td></tr><tr><td>Crystal Palace</td><td>UEL</td><td>3</td></tr><tr><td>Sunderland</td><td>UEL</td><td>3</td></tr><tr><td>Coventry City</td><td></td><td>3</td></tr><tr><td>Everton</td><td></td><td>3</td></tr><tr><td>Aston Villa</td><td>UCL</td><td>3</td></tr><tr><td>Manchester City</td><td>UCL</td><td>3</td></tr><tr><td>Chelsea</td><td></td><td>3</td></tr><tr><td>Hull City</td><td></td><td>2</td></tr><tr><td>Nottingham Forest</td><td></td><td>2</td></tr><tr><td>Brentford</td><td></td><td>2</td></tr><tr><td>Ipswich Town</td><td></td><td>1</td></tr><tr><td>Tottenham Hotspur</td><td></td><td>1</td></tr></tbody></table></figure>



<p><strong>European Scheduling Lessons</strong></p>



<ul>
<li>Champions League football is played on Tuesday or Wednesday. A club playing Tuesday won&#8217;t be scheduled the preceding Sunday, since that breaches the recovery window, so they get nudged onto Saturday instead. Good for a late kickoff, not ideal if you need sleep on a Sunday morning in Aus.</li>



<li>Europa League and Conference League matches are played on Thursday. That leaves under 60 hours before Saturday, so those clubs shift to Sunday instead, which is why they&#8217;re loopable in those specific weeks. Conference League&#8217;s the easiest to go deep in, which is why Brighton&#8217;s the dream pick if they get there, but the playoff has to go their way first</li>
</ul>



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<p><strong>Where I&#8217;m Leaning</strong></p>



<ul>
<li>Arsenal: Plenty of late Saturday games coming, and I barely captain an Arsenal player anyway. I&#8217;ve already got Ranson sitting in my squad, and now that he doesn&#8217;t play for them anymore, he&#8217;s already the perfect nuff without lifting a finger. Just need to decide if that beats switching teams entirely.</li>



<li>Brighton: Back them to win the playoff (we&#8217;ll actually know one leg&#8217;s result before the EPL season starts). Probably why McGill, their number three at £3.50m, is already sitting on 1.4% ownership; that&#8217;s high for a pick like this.</li>



<li>Crystal Palace: They made it clear Europe was the priority last year at least. Benetton&#8217;s the play, a keeper so far down the pecking order he doesn&#8217;t even have a photo or squad number on Palace&#8217;s own website.</li>
</ul>



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



<p>If I had to pick one right now, Brighton&#8217;s the team I&#8217;d nuff with. Their route through Europe gives them the clearest structural case of the three, even before a good playoff run. </p>



<p>It&#8217;s not locked in until that playoff&#8217;s done, but it&#8217;s where I&#8217;m leaning hardest.</p>



<p>It&#8217;s easy to see why nobody&#8217;s shopping below Raya and Lammens for a genuine starter. </p>



<p>Pay up for one of those two, or go down the rotation route and miss out on easy VC looping. </p>



<p>I&#8217;m sticking with Raya and planning to never spend a transfer on a keeper all season.</p>


EPL Supercoach | Budget GK Guide: Who to Start, Who to Loop

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