Several of last year's top scoring defensive assets have been priced kindly by Fantasy Premier League (FPL) and in this blog defenders in the 5.0 - 7.5 price bracket are analysed using the Fix Algorithm projections feature.

Premium Defenders (6.0 - 7.5)

The top five projected defenders for the first five gameweeks are all full-backs from last year's top three sides. Alexander-Arnold (32.2) and Robertson (30.4) are the top two and the below image taken from the Fix Comparison Matrix explains why.

The Liverpool duo are top for FPL assists per game (0.4) and are also the top two players for attempted assists per game (2.8 and 1.9). Cancelo (27.1) is only fifth in the projections but his underlying numbers are impressive. Although he is fifth for attempted assists (1.1), he is top for shots (2.3) and second for shots on target (SoT) 0.6. R. James (30.1) is projected higher than Chilwell (27.8), the right-back has the lowest points per game (5.4) in the projections but his numbers are over a far larger sample size than the left-back. Chilwell's numbers are very strong for the period he did feature, he is top for goals (0.4) and could be a great differential with just 11% ownership at the time of writing.

Mid-Priced Defenders (5.0 - 5.5)

In contrast to the previous bracket, the highest projected picks between 5.0-5.5 are all centre-backs. Gabriel (five), Coady (four) and T. Silva (three) all had significant goal threat last season which would explain their high ranking, and it is interesting to see the likes of Doherty (21.1) and Digne (20.0) ranked lower. As the Stats Sandbox image below shows, Doherty was top amongst defenders in this price bracket for 'Expected Goals' (xG) per game (0.19) and Alonso is second (0.11). However, the threat of rotation perhaps leads to the lower projections of 21.1 and 18.7 for the pair.

Digne was third amongst defenders in this price bracket for chances created per game (1.83) while Cash managed just 0.74, and the Algorithm favours the French international (20.0) over the right-back (19.4).