{"id":466998,"date":"2025-10-01T23:33:36","date_gmt":"2025-10-01T23:33:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/466998\/"},"modified":"2025-10-01T23:33:36","modified_gmt":"2025-10-01T23:33:36","slug":"why-defenders-are-doing-so-well-in-fpl","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/466998\/","title":{"rendered":"why defenders are doing so well in FPL"},"content":{"rendered":"

Three-time top 200 finisher Lateriser\u00a0delves deep into defenders, set pieces, defensive contributions (DefCon) and more in his Gameweek 7 article.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"FPL<\/p>\n

It has been some start to the Fantasy Premier League (FPL) season. A lot has changed in this game and if we don\u2019t change, we are failing to adapt. I\u2019ve been thinking about it, and here is my attempt to make sense of it.<\/p>\n

Defenders making a strong start\"FPL<\/p>\n

The biggest thing that comes to my mind is defence and our perception of it.<\/p>\n

Obviously, defensive contribution points (DefCon) are here and we can\u2019t ignore them, but there\u2019s also something deeper than that. Defenders are ruling. I mean, look at the numbers.<\/p>\n

In the top 20 FPL points scorers so far, this is the composition:<\/p>\n

\"defcon<\/p>\n

It is pretty drastic that 50% of the top-scoring players so far in FPL have been defenders. You want to take a guess at how many defenders were in the top 20 FPL points scorers last year? The answer is a big fat zero.<\/p>\n

Now, how do we make sense of this? It can\u2019t just be the fact that DefCon has boosted the numbers of Fantasy defenders. There\u2019s something more to it, surely?<\/p>\n

Set pieces more prominent\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/strong>\"FPL<\/p>\n

There have been 45 set-piece goals scored so far this season. The total number of league goals in 2025\/26 is 157. So, a staggering 28.7% of goals so far this season have come from dead-ball situations.<\/p>\n

Let us compare that to last season, when 230 set-piece goals were scored out of a total of 1,115. That\u2019s just over 20%.<\/p>\n

So, set-piece goals have gone up by around 10% year on year. That number isn\u2019t insignificant.<\/p>\n

With the advent of more data in the Premier League, a lot of the teams are relying heavily on set pieces for goals. Arsenal, of course, were always huge on set pieces. This stat from Tom\u2019s Arsenal article<\/a> was quite telling:<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cSince the start of the 2023\/24 campaign, the Gunners have scored 36 goals from such situations in the Premier League, 15 more than any other side in this perod.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

But it isn\u2019t just Arsenal that have a high percentage of set-piece goals (58%). A lot of teams are getting better at this.<\/p>\n

Let us look at the data for this season alone:<\/p>\n

\"defcon<\/p>\n

These are interesting numbers and essentially could mean two things.<\/p>\n

One, teams are more reliant on set pieces these days and find it a good way to unlock compact defences that are getting more and more organised.<\/p>\n

Or two, the below\u2026<\/p>\n

Teams not settled yet, high player turnover + intense schedule<\/strong>\"FPL<\/p>\n

A lot of the teams in the Premier League have had a lot of changes to their squads. The player turnover is at an all-time high and simply put, team chemistry just isn\u2019t in play yet. Even when you talk about top teams that will be high on our FPL radar, such massive changes have happened there.<\/p>\n