When it comes to FPL budget defenders, historically the teams that finish mid-table have been packed with them. West Ham United, Brentford, and Brighton are prime examples from the past.
However, this season things are a bit different. League leaders Arsenal have a whole defense that falls into the category of budget defenders, while struggling Liverpool’s full-backs are looking overpriced.
Our criteria for a budget defender is a defender priced at £5.5m or under.
Currently, over 100 players meet this criteria, but many of them are not even worth mentioning. Some won’t play a minute, some are currently injured, and some are out on loan.
After filtering out those players, we have listed below our recommended best-budget defenders for the 2022/23 Fantasy Premier League season.
The list is updated almost every game week!
Best Budget Defenders (FPL 2022-23)
1. Kieran Trippier (Newcastle United)
- Price: £6.1m
Priced at just £5.0m at the start of the season, the Newcastle defender Kieran Trippier is having the season of his life.
Currently, he is the best defender in the Fantasy Premier League with 152 points, which is head and shoulders above Gabriel’s 122 in second place.
As one of the top offensive right-backs in the world right now, Trippier’s consistent performances and broad role in the team have skyrocketed his value.
With massive ownership (currently selected by 64.8% of managers), he takes free kicks and corners and anchors Newcastle United’s attacks, leading to good BPS scores. Additionally, he has scored one goal and provided six assists in the opening 27 games.
We highly recommend Trippier for your FPL team for several reasons:
- Newcastle United is playing both defensively and offensively solid football.
- Trippier is averaging around 6.1 points per game thus far.
- He is the best defender both in his price range and overall in the league.
- His massive role in everything wins him a lot of bonus points.
2. William Saliba (Arsenal)
- Price: £5.3m
William Saliba’s current form and the way Arsenal are playing make him one of the best budget defenders in the league at the moment. Not only is he a good budget defender, but he is also an attacking threat who can score on corners and set pieces.
Saliba is on our list of recommended budget defenders for several reasons:
- He is the third top-scoring defender in FPL thus far.
- His current price is just £5.3m, which is relatively low.
- He has already scored two goals and provided one assist in the opening 27 games.
3. Marc Cucurella (Chelsea)
- Price: £5.0m
Marc Cucurella is in his second season in the Premier League and his first with Chelsea. He scored one goal and provided one assist last season, earning a total of 126 points in FPL.
While this may not seem impressive, he was named Brighton’s player of the season, and the team finished a respectable 9th in the league.
Cucurella and Trossard were the team’s main engines, and the Catalan player is yet to show his full potential.
His first season was primarily a settling-down period, during which he struggled with language and cultural differences. Nevertheless, he ended the season as the team’s best player.
Now that he is playing for Chelsea, one of the best defensive sides in the Premier League, and with his offensive threat, Cucurella has the potential to be one of the best budget defenders and a breakout player for the 2022-23 season.
The FC Barcelona academy graduate, Cucurella plays at left-back and possesses a strong attacking skillset.
We recommend signing him for your team for the following reasons:
- He is an attacking left-back who can provide numerous assists.
- He has already provided two assists in 27 Premier League games.
- Chelsea’s fixtures between gameweek 26 and 31 are relatively easy.
4. Fabian Schär (Newcastle United)
- Price: £5.0m
Fabian Schär is a top defender in FPL from Newcastle United, scoring consistently throughout the season.
He is the top points scoring defender in his price range, and takes occasional free kicks.
Newcastle’s defense is working pretty strong this season helping Schär score a lot of points there. He has already registered 13 clean sheets.
We recommend Fabian Schär for your FPL team for the following reasons:
- He is a sure starter and part of a solid Newcastle defense.
- He has scored a goal and averages more than 4.5 points per game.
- Fabian Schär is the fifth top-scoring defender overall in FPL.
- With the way Newcastle United is playing this season, he is likely to score a lot of points in the upcoming games, particularly those with a fixture difficulty of 3 or less.
5. Ben Mee (Brentford)
- Price: £4.9m
Brighton defender Ben Mee is currently in red hot form in terms of points scoring in FPL.
We recommend him as a budget defender for the following reasons:
- Brentford is an exciting team both defensively and going forward, and Ben Mee is scoring points both with clean sheets and goals+assists.
- He is currently 6th top scoring defender in FPL.
- Has favoring fixtures till gameweek 32.
6. Gabriel (Arsenal)
- Price: £5.2m
Gabriel is a well-disciplined, rarely-booked goal-scoring defender who scored 5 times last season for Arsenal in the Premier League.
The way his stats improved in the last 2 seasons makes him an FPL asset at least to put on the watch list.
But we recommend going on and signing him into your teams because the reasons for doing it are too many:
- Arsenal is in top form top of the table in the Premier League.
- Gabriel is a regular starter who played 3063 minutes last season and started every game in the current season.
- He is a goal-scoring threat on set pieces and corners, has already scored 2 in the opening 23 games.
- And he is sure to grow in price because not many managers are considering him in their teams, with only 13.9% ownership bound to go up with consistent performances.
7. Conor Coady (Everton)
- Price: £4.9m
Last season it seemed like Conor Coady is one right defender on the wrong team. He played 3361 minutes and scored 138 points for the Wolves.
The only bad thing in selecting him is that his only chance of scoring a goal or giving an assist is dependent on corners and distance free kicks.
Other than that he always stays at the back. Though last season Conor still scored 4 goals.
If you think Everton’s defense is strong enough to win clean sheets, then surely Conor Coady is a good budget defender for any FPL manager.
We recommend him as a budget defender for the following reasons:
- Top scoring defender in FPL among all Everton defenders.
- Has already scored and provided an assist in the opening 23 games with 5 cleansheets.
- Coady is averaging around 4 points a game and a series of easy fixtures are coming up between game weeks 24 and 27 except 1 game against Arsenal.
Best 4.5 Defenders in FPL:
Fabian Schär and Ben White for sure are the best 4.5 defenders in FPL in the ongoing season. Though Schär’s value is gone up to 5.2, Ben White is still available for £4.7m.
The thing that helped both these players in performing their best is the form of their teams Newcastle United and Arsenal.
Arsenal is top of the league while Newcastle United with one of the best defensive records in the ongoing season is currently 4th in the league.
Looking at that trend, if Newcastle United keeps the momentum going, their defenders can be great assets for your FPL teams.
Conclusion:
That’s all in FPL budget defenders.
Sign some of these players and fix your team now so that you can aim for the top 5% of managers list globally.
That’s the bracket where you can win the weekly, monthly, and season-end rewards.
To be successful in FPL, you always need a strategy to balance your team and play your best 11 in a way that if someone is not playing, a player from the bench can cover things up.
And to do that, you can’t fill your team with all the top and mid-value players because the budget won’t allow it and you can’t fill the team with all the cheap players either because then it will be impossible to score any good points.
We believe that a mix of these players can help you line up a solid FPL team with budget players who are at least starting the games.
So besides top players of the Premier League, you will need the gems that come at mid and low prices but are great squad players plus they have the potential to become the stars themselves.
And of course, you also need budget players, that not only fill your squad but are capable to contribute from the bench.
An ideal FPL defender is one who is playing out of position, playing regularly, and has a good offensive threat. Playing a player solely for a clean sheet is never a good idea.
Wishing you the best of luck in the ongoing season. 🙂
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