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Today, Official FPL announced that defensive contributions would count towards FPL points for the 25/26 FPL season. They then went into a bit more detail on defenders and midfielders. They ignored forwards because presumably they don’t do very well from this change.
So, in this piece we will look at how it works, look at some data and then give our view on the changes.
Defensive contribution (DC) points will be capped at two points per match. DC will be calculated slightly differently for defenders v.s. midfielders and forwards.
Official FPL highlights these ten guys as the biggest beneficiaries of the rules change but as you can see, they hardly set the world alight with what their total would have been last year.
| Player | Position | Club | Points | DC+FPL points |
| James Tarkowski | DEF | Everton | 44 | 145 |
| Moises Caicedo | MID | Chelsea | 42 | 140 |
| Jan Bednarek | DEF | Southampton | 40 | 100 |
| Dean Huijsen | DEF | Bournemouth | 38 | 142 |
| Murillo | DEF | Nott’m Forest | 38 | 168 |
| Elliot Anderson | MID | Nott’m Forest | 36 | 143 |
| Joao Gomes | MID | Wolves | 36 | 123 |
| Idrissa Gueye | MID | Everton | 36 | 135 |
| Wout Faes | DEF | Leicester | 34 | 89 |
| Christian Norgaard | MID | Brentford | 34 | 141 |
For context, the highest scoring defender last year was Gvardiol with 153 points and the 10th highest scoring defender was Aina with 128 points. The highest scoring midfielder was Salah with 344 points and the 10th highest scoring midfielder was Kluivert with 158 points.
I think Murillo would have been the highest scoring defender last year but the rest of these guys end up as top 20 players in their position max.
The official FPL piece on defenders shows us a bit more.
| Player | Starts | % starts with DC | Pts |
| Tarkowski | 33 | 66.7% | 44 |
| Bednarek | 30 | 66.7% | 40 |
| Huijsen | 26 | 73.1% | 38 |
| Murillo | 36 | 52.8% | 38 |
| Faes | 30 | 56.7% | 34 |
| Lacroix | 35 | 48.6% | 34 |
| O’Shea | 35 | 48.6% | 34 |
| Branthwaite | 28 | 57.1% | 32 |
| Collins | 38 | 42.1% | 32 |
| Kilman | 38 | 39.5% | 30 |
All of these guys are centrebacks and the piece also notes that Tarkowski “would have been the No 1 defender for this metric in each of the last FOUR seasons.”
Fortunately for us, FBREF also collects defensive actions data and below is the top 20 of those. You can find the top 200 of those here.
| Rk | Player | Team | 90s | Clr | Blocks | Int | Tkl | DC | Per 90 |
| 1 | Murillo | Nott’ham Forest | 35.4 | 249 | 69 | 36 | 53 | 407 | 11.50 |
| 2 | Maxence Lacroix | Crystal Palace | 34.6 | 207 | 48 | 54 | 68 | 377 | 10.90 |
| 3 | Nathan Collins | Brentford | 38 | 226 | 77 | 34 | 40 | 377 | 9.92 |
| 4 | James Tarkowski | Everton | 32.5 | 213 | 57 | 41 | 64 | 375 | 11.54 |
| 5 | Dara O’Shea | Ipswich Town | 34.7 | 225 | 62 | 33 | 49 | 369 | 10.63 |
| 6 | Max Kilman | West Ham | 37.2 | 212 | 58 | 38 | 39 | 347 | 9.33 |
| 7 | Antonee Robinson | Fulham | 35.2 | 133 | 43 | 62 | 95 | 333 | 9.46 |
| 8 | Jan Bednarek | Southampton | 28.1 | 190 | 47 | 56 | 36 | 329 | 11.71 |
| 9 | Nikola Milenković | Nott’ham Forest | 37 | 209 | 41 | 27 | 51 | 328 | 8.86 |
| 10 | Dean Huijsen | Bournemouth | 27 | 198 | 40 | 51 | 36 | 325 | 12.04 |
| 11 | Daniel Muñoz | Crystal Palace | 35.9 | 108 | 40 | 44 | 123 | 315 | 8.77 |
| 12 | Virgil van Dijk | Liverpool | 37 | 190 | 27 | 56 | 38 | 311 | 8.41 |
| 13 | Illia Zabarnyi | Bournemouth | 34.5 | 182 | 33 | 41 | 52 | 308 | 8.93 |
| 14 | Marc Guéhi | Crystal Palace | 34 | 163 | 55 | 28 | 61 | 307 | 9.03 |
| 15 | Wout Faes | Leicester City | 31.3 | 185 | 48 | 26 | 42 | 301 | 9.62 |
| 16 | Neco Williams | Nott’ham Forest | 28.8 | 137 | 42 | 31 | 90 | 300 | 10.42 |
| 17 | Dan Burn | Newcastle Utd | 37 | 197 | 36 | 27 | 39 | 299 | 8.08 |
| 18 | Aaron Wan-Bissaka | West Ham | 35 | 125 | 37 | 66 | 70 | 298 | 8.51 |
| 19 | Joachim Andersen | 2 Teams | 29.7 | 195 | 37 | 34 | 28 | 294 | 9.90 |
| 20 | James Justin | Leicester City | 32.4 | 141 | 48 | 46 | 58 | 293 | 9.04 |
Again, official FPL midfielders piece shows this. Note that it shows “top players for defensive contribution points in last four season.” Which I assume means it doesn’t make as much difference to that many players.
| Player | Year | Starts | % Starts with DC | DC pts |
| Rice | 22/23 | 36 | 86.1% | 62 |
| Rice | 21/22 | 35 | 77.1% | 54 |
| Gueye | 22/23 | 32 | 75.0% | 48 |
| Palhinha | 22/23 | 35 | 68.6% | 48 |
| Hojbjerg | 21/22 | 36 | 66.7% | 48 |
| Rodri | 21/22 | 33 | 69.7% | 46 |
| Norgaard | 21/22 | 35 | 65.7% | 46 |
| Neves | 21/22 | 31 | 71.0% | 44 |
| Palhinha | 23/24 | 31 | 71.0% | 44 |
| Tarkowski | 24/25 | 33 | 66.7% | 44 |
| Rodri | 22/23 | 34 | 64.7% | 44 |
| Romeu | 21/22 | 34 | 64.7% | 44 |
| Norgaard | 23/24 | 30 | 70.0% | 42 |
| Caicedo | 24/25 | 38 | 55.7% | 42 |
I haven’t been able to figure out how to grab the FBRef recoveries data yet but if/when I do I will update.
I don’t think there was any great need to change FPL but I am not against this or anything. Joe has been banging on about this change for years. I think I am more cautiously optimistic.
In theory, this should increase the number of players we can pick from in FPL. FPL can get quite boring when we can only pick from a limited pool of players so that is nice. It will allow managers to take different approaches to get more points.
It may also increase the viability of “big at the back” defences. That could mean formations with four or five defenders could be more viable and we could get a greater degree of variety of teams which is definitely something to celebrate.
I also think that it could increase the number of set-and-forget defenders. For example, if Lacroix is just motoring along picking up 3 points every week and then occasionally grabbing a clean sheet then that consistency will be good enough for you to never sell him. It would be nice to focus transfers on more explosive options.
The key question for me is still going to be price.
It’s not like they will keep Tarkowski and Caiceido at 4.5 because if they did then everyone would have them. If these assets are priced unreasonably then it’s not going to make any difference to whether you want them.
Speaking of money…
Where price won’t be an issue is in the official FPL draft format.
Obviously you don’t have a budget in the draft format so you are just looking who can score points. And if there are more options as to play as you can score points then that is great.
I think the other key point that concerns me about defensive contributions is how repeatable they are in FPL. If it’s like penalty saves for a goalkeeper then it won’t make any difference.
The early indication from the Official FPL Scout’s post is that there is a large number of defenders that consistently would score points. For the midfielders, the Official FPL Scout’s post is not that clear. They only show really one midfielder from last year who would have got a decent number of points from the defensive contributions. And then it’s Moises Caicedo who was shit then and isn’t amazing with the defensive contributions.
I am prepared to go out on a limb and say James Tarkowski will be one of the most highly-owned defenders going into gameweek 1. The fact he tops the list 4 seasons in a row combined with Everton’s defensive prowess is enough for me.
Nathan Collins and Murillo will also likely be on everyone’s minds because of the good opening fixtures for both Brentford and Forest.
Midfielders
The only guy that I think I am considering right now is Rodri. Long time readers will know that I fucking hate Rodri because of his tactical fouls. But, he is on the list of top scoring defensive contribution midfielders twice in the last four seasons. The last time that he played a full season (23/24) he scored 159 points in 34 starts. In 22/23 it was only 108 points but in 21/22 it was 127 points. He could break 180 points with this new system.
Some people will be very excited about Declan Rice because he appears on this list in 21/22 and 22/23 and those are the top two scores from defensive contributions over the last four years. But, he is noticeably absent in any season where he has played for Arsenal. And that is because he does not play the same role for Arsenal that he did for West Ham.
Overall I think we can be pleased that FPL has tried to do something new that will add a new dimension without doing something completely stupid – that’s a positive.
This is not a “huge” rule change as FFS would have you believe but it is certainly going to change how we think about a few players and particularly defenders.
Joe and I will be back with loads more content in the pre-season so keep an eye out!
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