Like George Graham always said (I’m guessing he always used to say this) – “Every successful team is built a solid defence”.

While I don’t live my life by George Graham’s philosophy’s (an interesting thought), I do share his sentiment when it comes to my fantasy team. By putting a solid, reliable defence in place, my fantasy budget and tinkering transfers are free to do the business at the sharp end of the team.

So while selecting a keeper and his defence is certainly not the most glamorous task ahead of you in your fantasy pre-season, stick with me and I’ll try my best to guide you through and sex it up a little with some player recommendations.

Get Real

In most Fantasy Games, when it comes to selecting your keeper and defence, it’s not the individual players you look for, but the effectiveness of the defence of their real life clubs. With this in mind, it appears that selecting these players takes little more research than looking up the United and Chelsea team sheet. In truth, that solution will get 50% of the job done. To get the most out your fantasy team you might have to work a little harder for the remaining 50%.

The homework can pay off though. I’ve always found that some careful thinking in the construction of my defence and the selection of my keeper, can provide a solid foundation for the rest of my side. If you’re happy with four of your five players in the defensive positions, it can free up precious transfers for midfielders and forwards. It’s in those positions where your inspiration can really come into play.

It’s All About The Cleanies

Before we go any further, it’s worth noting that initially in this guide I’m not going to be considering non-traditional scoring factors like “saves” and “penalty saves” for keepers. Some games, notably the Fantasy Premier League (FPL) game include these and that puts a whole new spin on which keepers are best to select.

Also, when it comes to defenders, I’m also ruling out stats like tackles and blocks as a means of scoring points. Again, some games like the Metro Game and the Yahoo game allow defenders to register significant points for these and again this can warp the view of which players are worth consideration.

I’m also ignoring Bonus points or Man of the Match awards as they are often difficult to predict and in the case of goalkeepers, pretty sparse. I’m not ignoring all these factors totally though. I’ll tackle all of these elements later in the guide.

For now, let’s look at choosing a keeper and a defence when all that matters are good old clean sheets and goals conceded. With that point made crystal clear, lets start drilling down into the methods you can use to select your players.

Between The Sticks

There are three schools of thought when it comes to selecting a keeper. It can be an easy task if you want it to be. The goalkeeper can be the classic “fire and forget” position in any fantasy team. In other words – you can select Pepe Reina and expect to be able “forget” about tweaking that position for the rest of the season.

That route is low maintenance but not a popular option. A more popular strategy and certainly one adopted by last season’s FPL winner Jon Reeson, is to save funds for elsewhere in your team and stick one or more cheap keepers in your squad. A big risk but it can prove to be a deciding factor over the season if you get it right. I’ve chosen both routes in the past and both have played a crucial part in my ridiculously average fantasy seasons.

There is however, a popular third option which falls somewhere in between – the mid-price keeper. Finding a good mid-price option in goal can involve doing some homework but can obviously be beneficial to your chances of success when it comes to saving funds.

The Back Five

While you can use one of the above method to target a goalkeeper, as a rule, I always try to select my keeper and defence as one set players. After all, both positions share the same basic scoring mechanic – clean sheets vs goals conceded. This means you can simply consider the keeper as a defender who won’t chip in goals and assists. In my opinion, this is an effective way of thinking about your keeper and helps to put his price and scoring potential, in relation to the price of defenders, and therefore your entire team/squad, into perspective.

There Will Be Tiers

We’ve established that clean sheets and goals conceded are crucial factors for keepers and defenders. Not surprisingly, there are some clubs that excel in these areas and some that are found wanting. Each season there are only a few clubs who actually present a good source of clean sheets. Chelsea, United and Liverpool almost guarantee 16+ clean sheets each season with the likes of Arsenal, Spurs and Villa providing less secure options.

This establishes a basic two-tier structure of clubs, with a third tier below that includes the likes of Blackburn, Stoke and Birmingham. Typically these clubs will reach double figures in terms of clean sheets. Below this is a fourth tier that include teams that may struggle to reach that 10 clean sheet mark, followed by a final tier typically made up of those sides likely to be fighting it out for survival.

Lets look at how I’ve laid out these tiers with the help of a handy table.

If you select your defence and keeper together, a good rule of thumb is that those five players should ideally consist of three or more from the top tier trio of clubs and the one or two remaining players should come from the second tier.

Failing that, you could opt for a attack minded defender or even a midfielder, misclassified as a defender in your game, from a third tier club. Martin Olsson at Blackburn is a good example of the latter while the likes of Ryan Shawcross and Jody Craddock also offer goals from the third tier. The idea here is that his goals and assists will make up for a lack of clean sheets.

The other alternative is to gamble on a fourth tier club to save cash for players elsewhere. That’s normally a high-risk strategy, which sees you relying on supplementary points from goals and assists or even bonus points if you’re playing the FPL game.

The Triforce

Your first task then is to find three or more players from Chelsea, Liverpool and United that you can afford and that will play enough games to warrant selection in your side. You can read my General Selection Guide for more on this, but basically you’re looking for first choice players at those clubs in defensive positions.

The keeper situation is made eaiser by the fact that Pepe Reina is the only stopper from those three sides who is likely to get close to 38 starts. Both Edwin Van der Sar and Petr Cech will miss matches through injury and may also be subject to rest around Champions League matches. The latter is certainly not an issue for Reina.

Reina is your choice if you’re looking to splash cash on a top tier keeper then; a good option if you’re not keen on spending that little bit more on the goal and assist potential of Glen Johnson.

When Clean Sheets Are Not Enough

While it looks like a top tier keeper is the best route then, I will stress that this advice comes without considering other contributing factors such as points for saves or man of the match bonus points. This can put a real spanner in the works and can certainly bridge the gap between the first and second tiers.

The top tier keepers do of course play in front of the strongest defences. Because of this they have less shots to save per match and therefore cannot rack up the points from saves to rival some of the lower tier keepers.

As an example, last season Reina kept 18 clean sheets but registered just 66 saves in the Fantasy Premier League (FPL) game. In comparison, Brad Friedal clocked up just 8 clean sheets for Blackburn but made 124 saves. That meant that Friedal trailed Reina but just 10 FPL points but cost significantly less.

If points for saves are a factor in your game then this will lift the second tier keepers higher up your shortlist and you should reconsider your strategy.

The trick is to try to find the best of both worlds. Last season David James recorded 16 clean sheets and made 124 saves in the FPL game. The Portsmouth defence wasn’t the strongest and kept James busy, but he had an outstanding season and helped the Portsmouth rearguard rank as the fourth best in the Premiership for clean sheets.

This season James is predictably priced higher and is no cheaper than the keepers from the top tier clubs. That means if you want to save some cash by ignoring the triforce that is Reina, Van der sar and Cech, you’ll need to look elsewhere.

The likes of Jaaskelainen at Bolton and Kirkland at Wigan could be worth considering in games like the FPL and the Guardian. Both are mid-priced in most fantasy games and both should be pushing for 12+ clean sheets this season given the defensive form of that their clubs showed in spells last season. Both should also contribute 100+ saves.

Permanent Fixtures?

The thing is, even with the likes of Jaaskelainen and Kirkland, you may need to make a change during the season due to the fixture list. A clutch of tough games against the big 4 clubs can suddenly turn your second tier keeper into a liability. Sure they may well make more saves during such a run of games, but often the lack of clean sheets and goals shipped with outweigh in returns from saves.

The second tier clubs are all more likely to have a patch of form which will see them concede goals. That’s far less likely to happen to the top tier clubs. It all means that by selecting a second tier option in goal, you’re committing yourself to studying form and fixtures to ensure you get the best returns.

If you’re worried about this prospect, you’re better off taking my initial advice and going for a “fire and forget” top tier keeper that offers guaranteed clean sheets over the season. It will cost you more but you can always opt for an extra second tier defender like Scharner and Lescott who can always contribute attacking points to make up for run of goals conceded. There are even players in the third tier who can do a job – Wheater at Boro for example.

So which of the top tier Keepers do you opt for? The thing to consider here, apart from price, is the contribution of your remaining first tier defensive choices in terms of goals and assists. That’s why, if you want variety and a player from each of the three clubs in your defensive unit, Reina is the probably the best choice right now.

The Liverpool defence offers little in terms of goals and assists. Agger, with 2-3 goals is an option but picking a defender amongst Rafa’s squad who will get 36+ games isn’t easy. To my mind Reina is safer from rotation than any of the defenders in front of him.

With Reina secured, you have Liverpool clean sheets covered and can go for the likes of Ferdinand, Vidic, Terry or Carvalho to fill the remaining slots in your defence, all of which offer more opportunity for goals and assists and may well be safer from rotation than the likes of Carragher, Skrtel and Agger. This gives you an overall defensive unit that consists of at least one player from Liverpool, United and Chelsea.

Once you have this basis you can then supplement these three selections with players from the second tier of clubs listed earlier or, as I say, gamble on a misclassified player or promoted club player.

Once more, I’m going to shamelessly plug my selection stats to help you find those players. The stats should show the likes of Lescott, Laursen, Clichy, Scharner and Johnson should be top targets. These will give you excellent attacking potential and in the case of Lescott, Clichy and Johnson, some pretty solid clean sheet returns too.

After that selection comes the likes of Dunne, Wheater and Bale – all defenders that should supplement their average clean sheet count with attacking points from goals, assists and in the case of Dunne – FPL bonus points. Bolton’s Cahill is another fairly strong option if the fixtures look kind for him.

If you looking for bargains you’ll need to plunge the depths of the third tier and fourth tiers and here you are gambling on the likes of Sunderland and Fulham defenders who should really only be touched on a run of home games or very kind fixtures. In the promoted sides you have likes of Turner at Hull, Shawcross at Stoke and Cech or Robinson at West Brom who look the best bet at their respective clubs. All at least offer some attacking potential to balance the inevitable tide of goals they seem set to concede.

In the main, my usual aim is to have three players regularly playing and contributing big defensive points with two cheaper, second tier players remaining in defence that you can juggle to form or perhaps change according to favourable fixtures. I’ve always found this a sound basis for my defence that allows me to concentrate the bulk of my transfer efforts elsewhere.

Again though, like the goalkeeper situation, when you opt for second or third tier clubs to provide your defenders, you’re committing yourself to giving your defence more attention in terms of monitoring the fixture list. That is of course if you’re a “hands-on” fantasy manager looking to win your league.

Tackles, Blocks and the Curse of Opta Stats

Throughout this guide I’ve emphasised the importance of clean sheets and goals conceded. Those are pretty simple concepts to grasp, even if you have to build in saves as a scoring method for your keeper. In some games however, you’ll need to have an appreciation for a whole new set of statistic based scoring methods including the number of tackles, blocks and interceptions that your defenders make during each game. Such scoring methods can be found in games such as The Guaridan and the Yahoo Fantasy Football game.

While these make for a rounded, realistic fantasy game overall, it means that defenders from second, third and even fourth tier clubs, actually prove to be more valuable.

In the Yahoo game for example the likes of McCartney of West Ham and Samba of Blackburn rank higher than in other games because they benefit from more tackles, intercepted passes and blocks. The top five players in that game for “tackles won” and “passes intercepted” all come from second and third tier teams and only Liverpool’s Carragher breaks that pattern by ranking fifth for “blocked shots”.

The lesson learned here then is that if you’re playing such a game where stats like tackles and blocks earn your defenders points, you’ll need to widen your net a little to perhaps include more players from second and third tier clubs. These defenders are more likely to make more appearances due to reduced threat of rotation, plus they will come under more pressure during matches and are therefore able to register greater numbers of tackles etc and earn more points.

As a general rule, rather looking at your defence and aiming for three players of your five from the top tier, you can look to get away with two from the top tier and fill your defence from the lower tiers in order to save cash for elsewhere.

Sweet FA

While all games award points from Premiership fixtures, some games also include domestic cup competitions and even European games. Because of the heavy rotation amongst the big clubs for FA and Carling Cup games, this can be another factor that can slightly skew the outlook on the best players to bring in.

Lets look at the Telegraph game (TFF) as an example. Although this doesn’t include saves as a method of scoring for keepers, points from FA Cup Games are included. These can really level the playing field when it comes to goalkeepers because of rotation amongst the top clubs. The three keepers I’ve mentioned earlier – Reina, Cech and van der Sar could all easily be rested or rotated for FA Cup games this season. When you consider that the TFF game also includes saves in penalty shootouts as a method of scoring (crazy I know), then you can see just how limiting this can be.

Again this can mean that the gap between the first and second tier club keepers is narrowed. If you take a look at the TFF points scored by those three keepers and compare it to the keepers at the second tier clubs such as Friedal, James etc, you will see the difference is not as major as in other fantasy games. This makes these second tier keepers, who will be ever present through FA Cup games, worth looking at – provided of course, they can get themselves good cup runs.

A Bit of Harmless Rotation

Another factor that can change your approach to which keeper you sign is whether or not you have a squad to play with. In games such as the FPL and The Guardian, you have fifteen players to juggle with, including two goalkeepers.

In a squad situation you have several options. You can go with the tactic of signing a top tier keeper with a cheap reserve, perhaps from a promoted club. Or you can sign two keepers from second tier clubs. It comes down to a question of finances and whether you’re willing to be hands-on with your squad.

By having two second tier keepers, one playing at home one gameweek, the other away, you can rotate them so you always have your first choice keeper playing at home. In theory, that should increase your chances of a clean sheet from this position.

In the FPL game for example, a Cech/Scharwarzer combo will set you back 10.0 million while a Jaaskelainen/Kirkland pairing will cost you 9.0. With Bolton and Wigan alternating home games and both sides strong at home in terms of clean sheets, you should be looking at between 14-16 clean sheets over the season. If you’re hands on with the fixture list and get the swaps right throughout the season, it could be more like 18-20.

The Cech/Schawarzer option should beat that with Cech turning in 18-22 clean sheets from his games alone. However, there may well be those annoying occasions when you bring in Schwarzer when Chelsea’s fixtures look tough and lose out on a clean sheet. That will be a tempting poser you’ll face over the course of the season.

Also, should Cech get injured (it’s happened frequently enough) you’d be almost forced into a transfer or face a run of games with a Fulham keeper. If Kirkland or Jaaskelainen faced a spell out you could certainly persevere for a week or so with the other mid-price option in your squad – depending on fixtures.

So, in this example, you would be gaining 1.0 by opting for Jaaskelainen/Kirkland but possibly losing out on 4-5 clean sheets. The question is, can you plug that 1.0 into the rest of your defence and gain a benefit? Lets look at the options.

Again in th FPL game, a Jaaskelainen/Kirkland/Carvalho combination will set you back 15.5 while a Cech/Schwarzer/Cahill combo will cost you just 14.5 or a Cech/Schwarzer/Scharner 15.0.

The last two options will give you a Chelsea/Bolton or Chelsea/Wigan clean sheet coverage each week for a cheaper price. The first option will give you the same coverage but the flexibility Bolton/Wigan/Chelsea coverage to change with fixtures and better coverage for injury.

The choice is a tough call and a question of assessing the cost of the two options and how confident you are in the lower tier teams you’re drawing from. As I’ve explained earlier in the guide however, I personally prefer the top tier keeper option since it gives you coverage on a one of the top three defences without a high risk of rotation. In the case of our example above, Carvalho certainly has a higher risk of rotation for Chelsea than Cech.

And Relax…

There you go then. Over three thousand words summing up some half-baked theories on choosing a keeper and a set of defenders. Thanks for ploughing on through.

I hope that some of hit proves useful to you, whichever game and set of rules you’re playing. I’ll be back with update guides on selecting midfielders and attackers before the start of the season, so stick around and see how I make other simple fantasy football tasks sound like life or death decisions with the complexity of nuclear physics.