Hi everyone. Have a great day.

That's an interesting read Chris. It is one of the reasons I held Alonso for as long as I did. (Though no longer own him). Wing backs have been really exciting this season more than ever. Robertson set the mark and Doherty has surprised everyone. More recently,the last several games at least, Kolasinac joined the party. (Lets forget how last week ended) It's easier to forgive a CS going belly up if you have players like these who love to bomb forward

I've always tended to go uber-cheap in defence for the "crap-shoot" reason, however there seems to be more defenders (wing backs) more consistently delivering attacking returns this season (Robertson, Doherty, Mendy) so seem good value with the bonus that they will keep some clean sheets too over the season.

Really good stuff Chris, great analysis, really clear point well illustrated.
I'd be interested to see a "value" column though in the analysis comparing defenders to other high scorers. Given defenders are half the price of key attackers would they be better value per pound spent?

Good stuff, Chris.
Clean sheet potential should be left to keepers imo closely followed by save points.

Defenders are so more attacking nowadays that a cleanie should be the icing on the cake (bonuses the cherry).

Cheers.

I think I would try to balance attacking threat with CS potential and cost.

The best attacking players having a similar (within 10%) chance of scoring as the best def getting a CA is one thing. However, we are talking £8m up to £13m for those players.

Defenders are considerably cheaper so the expectation so be more reasonable.

Finally, I think teams and players always go on runs so I feel it’s best to get a hold a premium defender rather than picking a new budget one every month who has 3 CS in the last 4. Chances are that player will fail to keep those numbers up and you’ll lose out when the original player gets an “unexpected” CS.

Great article! Kept my defence relatively stable this year thanks to Robbo, Doherty and W-B more based on bonus/attacking returns. Foster has also been great over the last few weeks but again on saves plus clean sheets as a bonus.

I think that Peter Blake on his Mathematically Safe blog undertook some research that showed (and my memory is hazy, so perhaps I'm wrong) defenders score points in a way that is more predictable than attacking players. Does this suggest the opposite to the thrust of this (helpful) analysis here?

Interesting read but dont Palace have 9 clean sheets in fifth place in that table? That puts them only just behind the top 4.

I’m a regular AWB player and not bencher. I live in the hope he’ll get an attacking return soon but he’s also value for bps. His 84 points for 4.1 seems great value and Palace seem good for another 4/5 cleans before seasons end.

Having missed the Doherty boat I’m happy to take his returns and use the cash in a fifth mid - an area where’s there’s heaps of value.

Nice read... In answer to question. I simply choose defenders from having best chance of clean sheet and most likely to return attacking points. Ie look at Kolasinac. I don't know exactly, but, if you don't get a CS there's a descent chance of an assist (or OG lol), no matter the fixtures. (+ helps he plays in an attacking team and has even better chance of returns, whereas a player for a poorer team but have reputation for getting CS ie my team Burnley it's more about just play them in 'easy' fixture and hope for a CS only

I generally pick defenders based on attacking potential and clean sheets are a bonus.

banking on attacking returns from fullbacks at smaller clubs is much higher variance than banking on cs from relatively cheap defenders at elite clubs (gomez, lovren, taa, stones, laporte etc). bookies have very sophisticated models for likelihood of cs and if you keep track of these you'll be able to reliably and consistently make good decisions. they will generally outperform attacking defenders from lower positioned clubs. for every player like holebas (substantially overperforming vs xgi) there are a bunch of other defenders you could own (morrison, bryan, pva) who get into similar positions and have similar quality but don't happen to get the returns, mostly by chance.

My response to this article consists of the gif of Malcolm Reynolds from Firefly starting to speak several times then ultimately stopping.

While there's some elements of truth in this article it is approaching the problem using weak statistics which leads to a faulty conclusion. The idea that searching for CS points is a fruitless exercise is simply wrong. I've not even looked at the numbers but I'd be willing to bet that the majority of additional points a defender brings are through clean sheets rather than attacking returns. I'm not saying don't focus on attacking returns but buying a defender who has limited CS potential is likely to cost points. Boring points, maybe but I don't care how I get them.

First thing to say is that defender points are always volatile. Defenders are buy-and-hold players not ones you bring in and out based on form and fixtures. That's a rule of thumb rather than a fixed law of FPL.

The next thing to be aware of is that CS points are also volatile. As with many statistics like goals and assist, using the historic data for the statistic to predict the future statistic shows quite a low correlation. The reference to randomness in the article is really the key to understanding this but it's the distinction between cause and effect. Teams don't get clean sheets because they have recently earned clean sheet. Rather, they are doing the things that earn clean sheets which, over the course of 100+ games will get the rewards.

My preferred predictors of CS are SoT conceded and defensive errors. There'll still be random factors at play but if the team are doing the right things, they will get the CS points. Pick the players who earn those points with sufficient regularity and you'll be bringing home more points that looking at the rarer attacking points.

That you buy the attack minded defenders is usually the right thing to do but at the expense of the CS points - no way. We only have too look at the early season so see that if you started the season with Robertson, Mendy, Alonso you'd have left your ML rivals cursing your luck

One final observation about marginal pricing. Upgrading a cheap defender to a top scoring defender costs about 2m. That price difference covers each ofl the midfield upgrade options from budget -> low -> mid -> premium and there are limited options where the partial upgrade in midfield compensates for the full upgrade in defence.

Barnes to laca for -4?

you need to look at it differently.

Wan Bissaka and Vardy for instance have almost the same number of points.

However, WB costs half of vardy.

yes most CS chances are below 50%, but you cant compare owning Doherty to owning sterling who gets 6+ points in most games.

As others said, without a value column, this would be futile. As the whole game revolves around making most points from 100M.

Appreciate the efforts put into the article, however it does ignore a lot of things which are imperative to the game.

Of course as many have said above, it ignores the value that FPL gives. Comparing defenders to premium assets isn't going to work because there's a set budget and a set of rules which includes having to play at least 3 defenders every week.

Also, not sure Holebas really fits into the motion against clean sheets. Watford aren't the most defensively sound team in the league and there are better defenders at that price available if you want to go purely on clean sheets. The appeal of Holebas in the first place, is his attacking returns. It doesn't help that he's a yellow card magnet too.

That City run was really poor and like me, many sure did suffer from that. But I think that was just a patch of City being poor than what we expect from them for a given period of time.

Anyone know the name of the app or website or think it may have been an extension for chrome so I can see my players next 5 fixtures? I currently only use the FPL app which is terrible. What are the best sites to use alternatively?

Does anyone have any data on the average position of defenders, specifically which defends have the highest average position?

I would imagine the players highest up the field have a positive correlation to attacking returns (for obvious reasons).

I'd guess the top 8 for highest average position would be; Doherty, Kolasniac, Pereira Robertson, Mendy, Alonso, PVA, Trippier.