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Having outlined how we review fixture difficulty in our previous article, today we're going to look at the teams that we believe have the best opening 5 fixtures of this season's Premier League from a defensive point of view.

Manchester City and Liverpool

Not only did these 2 clubs contribute the top 6 FPL points scorers of 2021/22, they also had 7 of the top 10 defenders for Points Per Match - Chelsea having the remaining 3.

So we know that in these 2 teams, we're getting the best and to make things even more appealing, both teams have an appetising start to the season. The obvious downside is going to be price. With Trent Alexander-Arnold, Andrew Robertson, Joao Cancelo and Virgil van Dijk being the most expensive defenders by the end of the season and with 6 of the 8 most expensive (once again, Chelsea with the remainder of the top 10), they'll come in at a premium, especially with Alexander-Arnold and Cancelo breaking the 200 points barrier.

If you're choosing between players from these 2 teams, the fact that Liverpool tend to outperform their xGA more than Man City do, could help to be the deciding factor.

Tottenham

Next up but still some way behind come Spurs.

Despite an early trip to Chelsea, their early fixtures and excellent underlying defensive stats since Antonio Conte took over look tempting. Knowing that Conte likes to play with attacking full backs will make the likes of Perišić and Doherty popular picks with Perišić in particular getting a lot of air time amongst the FPL community.

A considerable risk to bear in mind is that Conte has a tendency to change his wing backs mid-match so the dreaded 59th minute removal is a real danger with the increase in substitutions available.

Best Budget Rotation Option

Whilst we don't have player prices yet, this is a bit of a "best guess" exercise based upon defender prices from previous seasons. The ideal scenario would be a playing £4.0m defender that we can find somebody similarly priced to rotate with but we'll have to wait and see if this is possible.

Brighton + ...

Brighton are the highest "budget" team in our rankings and 2 teams potentially rotate with them - Crystal Palace and Bournemouth.

Over the start of the season, a rotation of Brighton and Palace gives you -
Arsenal (H), Newcastle (H), Aston Villa (H), Leeds (H) and Brentford (H).

Brighton and Bournemouth presents -
Aston Villa (H), Newcastle (H), Arsenal (H), Leeds (H) and Wolves (H).

With both sets of fixtures being similar, it would be a risk to choose Bournemouth over Palace but they are more likely to have a viable £4.0m option.

The Rest

The main team to consider that we've touched upon a few times is Chelsea. Ben Chilwell and Reece James will be in many teams given their attacking threat and it would be foolish to write them off.

Kieran Tierney and Kieran Trippier (especially with Nick Pope in goal behind him) could also be exciting options and Arsenal have a decent set of fixtures to start too.

Speaking of decent fixtures, Wolves and Everton have a good start to the season but their defensive numbers don't compare to many of the other teams so would probably be best to avoid.

Big-at-the-Back

After the disappointment with Forwards last season, big-at-the-back proved popular and with so many attacking full backs, it could prove to be a viable strategy again this year. There are some exciting forwards joining the Premier League again but we've been here before with Cristiano Ronaldo and Romelu Lukaku last season - both of whom were outscored by plenty of defensive options.

It shouldn't be long now before FPL opens for the 2022/23 season and we can begin to see what options are viable.

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