Here’s our fantasy premier league defender tips GW31 article where we give our defender and GK player rankings for gameweek 31. There’s a table of stats and player suggestions to help you make a transfer choice.
fantasy premier league defender tips GW31 – player rankings for Defs and Gks
There’s player transfer suggestions at the end if you want to skip all the stats preamble.
Stats definitions:
I’ve firstly ordered the teams by what I think is their defensive strength based their goals, clean sheets and xG/shots conceded.
The stats after that are their:
best cheap secure gametime option and an attacking option so you can compare price.
GK price in as a comparison.
bookies odds for a clean sheet for GW31. The lower the better obviously.
Prices are as of Wednesday 13 March
Gameweek 31 Fixtures
The Schedule
If you want access to copy and paste the schedule here’s the google spreadsheet link which I’ve set out differently if you want to sort different columns
The teams are ranked by defensive strength. Fixtures are not factored in.
Player transfer suggestions for GW31
Transfer suggestions are a bit difficult because at this time of the season it depends alot on your chip strategy but I’m going to look at the teams with good clean sheet prospects in GW31
Liverpool
I think it is definitely worthwhile having a Liverpool defensive option for GW31. Alexander Arnold is the most potent attacking weapon but he’s also (Matip apart) the most likely to be rotated. Alexander Arnold needs monitoring for an injury risk this week as well. Van Dijk at £6.6m is probably the least rotatable for Klopp.
Liverpool have guaranteed fixtures during the blanks of GW31 and GW33 but will have no DGWs
GW31 Fulham (A)
GW32 Spurs (H)
GW33 Southampton (A)
GW34 Chelsea (H)
GW35 Cardiff (A)
GW36 Huddersfield (H)
West Ham
West Ham may not have the most reliable defence but they do have the most obliging opponent in GW31 of Huddersfield.
The GK Fabianski who attracts save points and bonus is a good pick. The outfield defenders are a little trickier.
Rice at £4.7m is the safest choice and plays as a CDM as well. There are cheaper options in £4.4m Diop and £4.2m Ogbonna but their selection is clouded by the fitness of Balbuena. History would show that Ogbonna will be the sacrifice.
The LB position has uncertainty written all over it. Less so the RB position where £4.5m Fredericks has started the last 3 but his selection still requires a leap of faith
West Ham have guaranteed fixtures during the blanks of GW31 and GW33 but will have no DGWs. The fixtures get difficult after this week.
GW31 Huddersfield (H)
GW32 Everton (H)
GW33 Chelsea (A)
GW34 Man Utd (A)
GW35 Leicester (H)
GW36 Spurs (A)
Bournemouth
In xG terms the Bournemouth defence are ranked 10th at home and 16th away which is a pretty good summary of them.
Newcastle at home is a good fixture but £2.60 for a clean sheet is pretty generous odds for the fixture which shows how the Bournemouth defence is thought of.
Boruc having started the last 8 looks a good cheap GK option at £4.1m. After that Ake stands out even though he’s not cheap at £5.1m. He leads the Bournemouth defence in points, Bonus, BPS and goals.
If you want to go cheaper with any longer term gametime security it gets tricky and there’s no one I’d say I would guarantee would be in the starting lineup this weekend and then 6 gameweeks on apart from Ake.
Bournemouth have guaranteed fixtures during the blanks of GW31 and GW33 but will have no DGWs. Great fixtures going forward.
GW31 Newcastle (H)
GW32 Leicester (A)
GW33 Burnley (H)
GW34 Brighton (A)
GW35 Fulham (H)
GW36 Southampton (A)
The Official FPL fixture schedule
There are obviously still postponed fixtures to be added. See my doubles and blanks article
See also current 4k OR Jordan Sadler’s free hit team and Rob Reids free hit teams article
There’s our FPL form article and our best underlying stats from GW30 only
See also our 10 top FPL managers article and the early FFGeek team articles and last season’s 715 OR finisher Andrew Ferguson’s team
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