Here’s our fantasy premier league season end defenders article where we give our defender and Goalkeeper player rankings for the 19/20 season. There’s a table of information and discussions on key teams
fantasy premier league season end defenders – player rankings for Defenders and Goalkeepers
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Stats definitions:
I’ve firstly ordered the teams by what I think is their defensive strength based their goals conceded, xG conceded and the shots per game conceded. I’ve also now added their last 10 gameweek form. You can see the rank of each stat mentioned above in the first 4 columns.
The stats after that are their:
My suggested defender for that team. I’ve tried to take into account what I think is an appropriate price for the team as well as their attacking and points potential. The table then shows their value and current 19/20 PPM.
The likely starting GK for the team with the same price and PPM next to them
The Clean Sheets obtained and then the ranking of them. Equal number of clean sheets will give an equal ranking
I’ve ignored the relegated teams personnel and not tried at this stage to add in the promoted teams
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. Just go File> make a copy to get your own version
The teams are ranked by defensive strength only.
A few notes
If you look at the clean sheets and the underlying stats you can see that the top 5 teams in Man City, Man Utd, Liverpool, Wolves and Leicester were clearly the best defensive sides.
Chelsea weren’t far behind in underlying statistics but suffered, among other things, from having the GK with the worst save % in the league which made their goals conceded and clean sheet tally look pretty poor. Everton’s stats weren’t as good but Pickford was nearly as bad.
The correlation between my stats and resulting clean sheets was pretty good but not surprisingly there were anomalies.
I’ve talked about Chelsea and Everton and while it seems that having a GK with a good save % stat doesn’t guarantee clean sheets without the underlying stats having a bad save % GK certainly doesn’t help the situation. Kepa and Pickford are evidence of that and it’s worth noting that the 2 above them are Foster and Krul who’s teams were both relegated.
Man City
While Man City’s defence was roundly criticised this season it’s worth noting that they were 2nd in least goals conceded and 1st in expected goals against and shots per game against. A fit Laporte and the acquisition of Ake and maybe even another CB will go along way to solving the problems. Rodri also has to step up to provide some ability to stop teams if they break the Man City press and it will be interesting to see if they buy in the CDM position.
It will be also interesting to see how they are priced as Walker was the top Man City FPL points scorer in 24th position for Defenders and Laporte the top Points Per March scorer in 12th
The Fullbacks will be rotated too much to be an option and Ederson won’t make enough saves to be a viable alternative. However the CBs to me with Ake and maybe another could be a possibility next season. Ake may also contribute some attacking points.
One of the annoyances of Pep (among many from an FPL point of view) is his habit of subbing in defenders. Otamendi was subbed on 6 times last season and Stones 4 times even though he only made 12 starts. That maybe an impediment to Man City defenders as rotation as it’s one thing if your FPL defender stays on the bench like they do for most teams and you get an auto sub it’s another if he comes on in the 88th minute for a 1 pointer
Man Utd
Not much to say here apart from the fact that there should be some solid clean sheet points especially if another CB is purchased. Not much in the way of attacking points unless Wan Bissaka’s improvement continues.
Liverpool
It’s hard to to past someone who scored 4 goals and got 15 assists even if he will cost £8m plus in Alexander Arnold. I expect Gomez won’t be the bargain he was either so cheap alternatives will be thin on the ground.
Wolves
The playing style should see a continuation of solid defensive stats. The choice is between the attacking power of Doherty and the value of others that will inevitably arise. A new GK would be helpful as Patricio really didn’t cover himself in glory last season with the penalty saves obscuring his pretty ordinary performances
Leicester
It’s hard to know where this will go. Pereira could still be injured, Chilwell sold and their are also rumours around Schmeichel. However the big loss would be the man who protects them all in Ndidi. It’s a watch this space for whether they are a viable option next season
Chelsea
The underlying stats are good but a combination of Kepa and an inability to stop counter attacks plus set pieces has really caused them problems this season. Thee is potential for improvement and bargains if at least 1 new CB is bought and a new GK but a selection policy that would have Pep saying WTF is also an issue.
Burnley
How on earth did Burnley get 15 clean sheets? Their xGA is nothing special they give up a load of shots and Pope also is pretty ordinary in my view despite the facade he has presented with a mind boggling performance against Liverpool.
I suspect the answer is that they had good defensive performances to get clean sheets against bottom half teams which in overall stats terms is negated somewhat by the odd hiding from Man City twice, Chelsea twice and Spurs. Something I’ve added to my to do list. Their remains the potential for bargains in the full back position if you dare go without the bonus machine that is GK Nick Pope.
The clean sheet schedule
I know it’s now in the schedule but I though worth repeating as a standalone schedule.
My schedule generally tries to focus on the stats that will lead to clean sheets rather than clean sheets themselves but anyway here’s clean sheet schedule from the premier league site
Goalkeeper save %
Here’s another schedule which shows you a goalkeeper save %. It’s not a ranking in itself as you can see there’s no correlation between % and clean sheets but does give you some idea of GKs who are good shot stoppers. It’s from the free stats site fbref.com
Other posts
Andrew Whitfield season review
Costas Chari end of season review
A deep dive on the FFGeek Contributors
Final wrap up of the 10 top FPL managers
Rob Reids overview of the Promoted Teams
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