In a twenty-club game, cheap defenders are a scarcity problem: there are only so many, everyone knows who they are, and by October they are all owned. In a ninety-six-club game they are an abundance problem, which is a much nicer problem and one most managers take half a season to notice.
| Player | Club | League | Price | Points |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Thiaw | Newcastle United | Premier League | £5.2m | 123 |
| Affengruber | Elche | La Liga | £5.4m | 114 |
| Kadıoğlu | Brighton & Hove Albion | Premier League | £5.2m | 112 |
| Ballard | Sunderland | Premier League | £5.2m | 111 |
| Rodon | Leeds United | Premier League | £5.1m | 110 |
| Natan | Real Betis | La Liga | £5.3m | 109 |
| Toljan | Levante | La Liga | £5.0m | 107 |
| Bigas | Elche | La Liga | £5.3m | 106 |
| Bartesaghi | AC Milan | Serie A | £4.8m | 104 |
| Mbow | Paris | Ligue 1 | £5.5m | 103 |
Why this matters more than it sounds
Your fourth and fifth defenders and your bench are, between them, about £22m of a £100m budget. Getting that £22m down to £18m without losing minutes is the difference between affording one premium forward and two. That is the entire trade, and a wider pool makes it easier to win.
What to look for
Minutes first, everything else second. A £4.5m defender who plays 34 matches beats a £5.5m defender who plays 22, almost regardless of what either does with the ball. After minutes, look at the clean-sheet rate of the club rather than the reputation of the player — and check whether he takes corners, because a defender on set pieces is a midfielder in disguise.
The trap
Do not fill all five defensive slots this way. A squad with no premium defender has no route to a big week from the back, and defenders can be the highest scorers in the game — see last season's list, where the second-highest scorer in Europe was a wing-back.