Not the best, but they did improve. And why I'm bringing them into the fixture-proof conversation is that Arteta has parked the bus against tough teams since he came in, which previous managers didn't do. If, and only IF they back this up with clean sheets as the season progresses it might become liable to get Tierney as a cheap premium-value defender or just rotate Saliba in for the super easy games you'd expect them to control well. I'm not advocating for starting the season with any of their defenders. Just starting their potential. As with any form of potential, it may just not work out that way for them

Burnley had 15 clean sheets last season, two of which were against top 8 sides: https://www.transfermarkt.com/nick-pope/leistungsdatendetails/spieler/192080/saison/2019/wettbewerb/GB1/verein/1132

Palace is among the best of the rest, yes. But they are closer in reliability to the rest of the budget defenders than they are to Burnley... With Taylor or another Burnley 4.5 really standing out at 4.5

If your reservation is about Burnley defence being independent on their keeper, we could just go through the past three seasons with two major keepers... And how badly Heaton did at Villa

But at the start of the season their defence is shot to pieces. Oddly, they were under-manned at the start of last season IIRC.

Injuries. While the defences in my original post have their main personnel returning, Palace is completely bare bones now. One to avoid until things improve... And then, yes. They're among the more reliable cheap guys. I mean, Wan-B at 4.0 wasn't long ago, and I stated the season with him in my XI then because I expected what happened

This led them to a price hike last season, but they still matched their potential against lower teams... Making Kelly and Guaita template members at some points

Now? I have Mitchell 4.0 on my bench, because I hope something might happen again

So, yes. I do agree with you. But I still feel Burnley outperforms them on trustworthiness. Might be good to go with both and rotate if fixtures somehow bless us with the permission

Thank you 🙂

I'm doubting this beyond the Wolves City Liverpool point. The conclusion about Burnley is the one I'm sceptical about. If you take the last 3 seasons - premise in opening - then their record is nothing special. One great one bad one goodish. They only look standouts if you take last season as their likely performance this time. Always possible but 15 cs is a likely very maximum for a team of that profile. Rarely does a team around 10 in the table get near that.

I also query slightly that Newcastle SU and Palace attacked more in winnable games. Or better said I think there is a logical gap here. They may have attacked more but they defended in exactly the same way. Certainly this is true of Palace the team I know best. They had an outstanding cs record against bottom 10 and they were very system based to the extent that injury absences had relatively little effect. Know SU and Newcastle less well but memory is that rhyme performed in much the same way. The one differencebeing Newcastle changed there system post lockdown.

Probably because of Lundstrum.

It's possible to take one midfield/forward slot and have a rotating 4th defender with TAA, Robbo and Doc as fixture-proof constants, so you still get value from the available 4.5s... And lose a streaky/unpredictable 6.0 to 6.5m forward or 5.0 to 6.5m midfield slot

Good points there.

Wolves: I see the sentiment, but Doc has done well in either formation. It will take a while to get the stats to show this in detail, but I know because I had him for a sizeable chunk of their post-Europa season, and he was a captaincy candidate for me, without seeing his returns affected by formation. That's how much I trust him with Boly fit. I blamed myself often when I capped attackers over Doherty and TAA in some glaringly obvious fixtures, due to the "never cap a defender" bias, and got bitten hard. I've learnt from this and will trust my own analysis now

About Laporte: Not sure Pep will be bold enough to heavily rotate (rather than occasionally rest) a fit Laporte except during fixture congestion, but it is possible... Note that Laporte didn't start every game in his best season either, but came away with 21 unreal clean sheets in 3056 out of 3420 possible minutes. He's also one of the targets for indirect set pieces since he brings the rare height to the squad (and can flick the ball on as well), and that will be helped by KDB's pinpoint dead ball crosses. There are negatives about owning him - one of which is the 6.0M price tag when he won't start every game; another being the fact that there are 5.5m defenders or 4.5m rotating pairs that have the potential to beat him for points even with those clean sheets - so I've actually never had him in a draft since the game launched

About Liverpool: I have Robertson and will cap TAA if I feel a Pool fixture deserves taking the captaincy off Fernandes/KDB for that GW. This is why I don't have Salah. This will change if Pool turns out to be terrible all of a sudden (or an Alisson/VVD injury), just the same way any other long term FPL plan can change in one day

About Lloris: Yes. Absolutely yes. Lloris is nailed in my team all season, Europa or not, until an injury or the emergence of an unavoidably better keeper

Even Martinez potential, many options!