Are we witnessing a decline?

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Tom Hadley – a one-time world number one in FPL – is the newest addition to our ever-growing team of contributors.

He’ll be providing data-driven articles regularly this season, chiefly around defensive contribution points (DefCon).

In this piece, he picks out the leading defenders and top opponents for DefCon points – and asks if we’re witnessing a drop-off.

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I’m back with another DefCon update! It’s time to take all bias aside, exploring where the current value lies in defence and whether we should still put all our eggs in the “DefCon basket”. 

Best Opponents to Face for DefCon Points

It’s been relatively unchanged for a good few weeks now, bar a position here or there. These nine teams (with Liverpool featuring twice) represent a fairly good guideline to the predictability of DefCon points – particularly for centre-backs. 

Roughly 50% of centre-halves are likely to hit the DefCon threshold against these sides. And given more or less every team has its specialist DefCon centre-back, there’s an even greater chance that it will be those players that hit the threshold against the above teams. 

My rule of thumb is to play my best DefCon-amassing assets in practically every game, but this chart can help sway any 50/50 benching dilemmas towards the player who has a defensive-contribution-friendly fixture.

It’s also quite interesting that it’s not necessarily the top sides that offer up DefCon points. Arsenal and Liverpool are there, of course, but you have the likes of Brentford and Crystal Palace, two long-throw specialists, boasting huge numbers. 

Top Defenders for DefCon Points