Welcome back, hopefully you had a great GW8. Certainly, if you had loaded up on Aguero, the Southampton pairing of Pelle and Tadic and included some Everton defensive representation, you probably found yourself in the coveted FPL “100 Club”. Me personally? Er. Well, not exactly. 62 points saw a clean sweep of red arrows in all of my various mini-leagues and a slump from 21k to 30k. Still, this is a marathon and not a sprint as they say...

If you caught my article last week here, you will remember that I was deliberating on dumping Costa for Aguero (I didn’t) but also told you about the amazing “Points Projection” tool offered here on Fantasy Football Fix. It told me that Everton coverage was a must, as the Toffeemen were about to explode. And so it came to pass. A quick look at the points return from the starting defensive unit reads as follows:

Howard – 6 pts

Baines – 15 pts

Alcaraz – 6 pts

Jagielka – 14 pts

Coleman – 13 pts

Combined with a goal from Lukaku and an assist from Barkley (6 pts a piece) it seems that the projections were absolutely spot on. Luckily, although I did wimp out on the Costa to Aguero transfer, I did follow the sites advice and brought in Baines for Wilson. Without this my Gameweek would have been truly disastrous!

For this week’s article I’ve decided to go with the defensive theme, as this is where the points are potentially to be found. With many of us owning a template team in the front 7 positions, (I depressed myself earlier this week by discovering my front 7 are the Top 7 most owned players overall) a couple of defensive differentials could be the key to advancement in the short term.

One of the many useful features on this site is the “Fixture Analysis” tool, which will allow you to toggle the stats for between one and eight Gameweeks and provides a graphical representation, easily deciphered on where the value is to be found. This can be subsequently broken down on the tabs to show the stats for “Defence Potential”, “Attack Potential”, “Goals”, “Assists” and “Cleansheets”. This is by team, not by individual remember, which will allow you to hunt out the value budget players that are regularly starting for their club. Take Alcaraz for instance. Although he didn’t score as highly as the other 3 Everton defenders last week, his price of just £4.3m represents exceptional value for money.

For the purpose of this week’s exercise, I have toggled the “Upcoming Fixtures” to show the cleansheet potential for the next 3 weeks. I personally like to plan in batches of 3 weeks, but it is obviously individual preference.

As you can see from the screenshot, this throws up something quite unexpected. Spurs top the list for cleansheet potential over the next 3 Gameweeks. I’ll be honest, looking at the fixtures I had expected to see Everton up there (bur / SWA / sun) but they appear 8^th overall. So let’s look at Spurs a bit more closely. Two home games against Newcastle and Stoke, with an away tie at Villa in-between. Newcastle have only kept 2 cleansheets all season in GW2 (0-0 vs Aston Villa) and GW8 (1-0 vs Leicester). Aston Villa, after a strong start, haven’t kept a cleansheet since GW4 and haven’t scored a single goal since that win vs Liverpool. Stoke have also only kept two cleansheets all season, in GW3 (0-1 vs Man City) and GW6 (1-0 vs Newcastle). So the stats aren’t lying. These 3 teams are pretty pants at shutting out the opposition. None of them are prolific at scoring many either.

Let’s take a look at the Spurs defensive options then. Lloris tops the list of Goalkeepers from the whole of the Premier League with 39 pts, 6 clear of his nearest rival, Southampton’s Forster. Eric Dier, despite a strong start in the first couple of weeks has drifted off with many losing interest. In fact, he fell in price in the early hours of this morning and can be picked up now for just £5.3m. He is still owned by 23.7% of managers, although I’d wager many of those are ghostship teams after people lost interest in FPL after the first few weeks of the season. Danny Rose can be purchased for just £5.0m, and is owned by 3.9%, making him a cheaper alternative with greater differential potential. Younes Kaboul is another option for the same price and with a slightly lower ownership stat of 3.3%. Finally, Jan Vertonghen can be bought for a higher price of £6.0m, but is owned by just 2% of managers. Word of caution though, he had lost his place to Federico Fazio for the last game, but his red card means he is suspended for GW9 so the Belgian will definitely play. Maybe a bit risky though when there are cheaper alternatives.

The inclusion of Arsenal in second place caused me to raise eyebrows, especially with their defence decimated by injuries. However, they DO face a battered and bruised Sunderland fresh from their 8-0 thumping by Southampton, followed by Burnley at home, then Swansea away. So definitely cleansheet potential there no matter who the Gunners put in the backline. Definite value to be found in the likes of Chambers (£4.6m) or maybe the cheaper Bellerin at just £4.4m? Maybe worth thinking about.

Southampton and Chelsea appear in the top 5; but by now you have representation from Saints already in your team, and if not, why not? Chelsea defenders are also a common theme in many teams so I don’t need to elaborate on them either.

So, in summary, familiarise yourself with the many amazing tools on this site. Think about planning your transfers for more than just one gameweek. Look at where value is to be found.

I’ll revisit this article in 3 weeks to see what happened, but I think the stats won’t lie and Spurs, Arsenal, Southampton and Chelsea defenders and goalkeepers will be the ones that top the points table consistently.

As for me? I still haven’t bought Aguero in for Costa, and if I do it’ll mean downgrading a premium defender in the form of Ivanovic. If I do push that button, it’ll be a Spurs player I bring in – either Rose, Kaboul or Dier.

Good luck, and have a great GW9!

Hope you enjoyed the read.

FLY

@meet_the_gadfly