Title says it all, really. Five losses and a draw after being up 3-0 … there has surely never been a bleaker moment in a Pep team. Maybe Rodri really is just that important, as Jacob explains through an insightful “field tilt” visualization. Our first Dilemma Deliberation is more theoretical (though very applicable): Is it better to start a goalkeeper from a worse defense against a worse attack, or a goalkeeper from a better defense against a better attack? We posit that it’s quite helpful to imagine yourself owning an attacker from each of the opposing teams and comparing how confident you feel in each attacker. On a very practical note, we then consider a few teams whose fixtures are about to plummet and look at potential replacements for popular assets from these teams. Along the way, Darwin Núñez, Alejandro Garnacho, Timo Werner, and Adama Traoré get mentioned in the same group; brownie points if you can figure out what it is! Finally, we round the episode off with captaincy—would it be madness to captain any player against City? In their current pep-less (intentionally lowercase, mind you) state, perhaps not …

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