For many fantasy managers, the defensive line is more or less the enabling line. The strategy is often to rotate two cheap goalkeepers, have one or two heavy hitters (£6-7m), one mid-priced player (£5-5.5m), and then two budget options (£4-4.5m). This can be further reduced. The thinking behind this strategy is generally sound: the big scores – and thus the preferred captaincy options – tend to come from expensive midfielders and forwards, so it makes sense to allocate as much funds as possible to those aspects of one’s team.
In the current season, that strategy has again proved to be a sound one. But does it need re-thinking? There are perhaps three reasons to suggest that it does.
First point
First, the strategy has been a success mainly due to the performance of the Wolves defence, along with the early season form of Aaron Wan-Bissaka. Why spend big sums on defenders when you can get double-digit returns from players in the £4-4.5m bracket? A brief glance at Crystal Palace’s fixture list however, and it becomes apparent that Wan-Bissaka, while he still represents decent value, can no longer be relied upon for the clean sheets and bonus points that made him such a popular pick in the opening gameweeks. As for the Wolves defence, they face a less tricky but still fairly troublesome group of fixtures. Furthermore, one can envision a near-future in which their settled starting 11 turns against them, as teams begin to work out how to hurt them. Of course, one could simply switch from one batch of budget defenders to another, but that may not be a prudent move in the current climate (see point three).
Second point
The second reason that saving money on defence may be unwise is that, frankly, it’s not clear who or what one is saving for. Things could of course change, but at this moment there aren’t too many of the high-priced midfielders and forwards that are nearing essential status. Eden Hazard, perhaps, is the one who comes close to meriting that label. There are of course good reasons for having midfielders like Mohamed Salah, Raheem Sterling, Sadio Mane, and Kevin De Bruyne in one’s squad, but we are not yet in a situation where we simply must free up funds to acquire as many of them as possible. As for heavy-hitting forwards, only Sergio Agüero has really justified his inclusion on our squads, and even he has struggled for explosive returns. For the moment, Harry Kane, Romelu Lukaku, and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang each represent differing headaches for fantasy managers.
Third point
The third and final reason for re-thinking the strategy in defence is that, in simple terms, the expensive players from the big teams are hogging a large portion of the clean sheets. Consider Man City, Liverpool, Chelsea, and Tottenham. In 2017-18 these four teams accounted for 27% (17 out of 63) of clean sheets from gameweeks 1-9. In 2018-19, by contrast, they account for 39% (20 of 51) of clean sheets. So while the overall number of clean sheets has dropped quite considerably (from 63 down to 51), these four teams together have actually accumulated more clean sheets than they did by this stage of the previous season. Add in the attacking potential of Benjamin Mendy, Kieran Trippier, Andrew Robertson, and Marcos Alonso, and one can begin to justify populating one’s defence (plus goalkeeper) with six players from these four teams. A back six of Alisson, Robertson, Mendy, Alonso, Trippier, and Laporte/Lovren/Virgil van Dijk could potentially have you 40-50 points in the bag before you even get to your midfield and forward line.
Conclusion
This, of course, is not a foolproof strategy, nor is the most sexy of strategies.
At least part of the reason to keep a tight rein on the defensive budget is that it is much more exciting to own attackers than it is to watch games in the hope of clean sheets.
Yet in saying that, for a mere 32 point hit I can have the back six mentioned above, and also have Hazard, Salah, and De Bruyne in midfield, with Marco Arnautovic and Raúl Jiménez up top.
There is certainly some fun to be had in such a line-up.
