Even more Premier League action to ponder as we look back at the Gameweek 15 show: Aston Villa 2-1 Arsenal.
RICE ON TOP OF MIDFIELD
He has had just six shots in the box all season, scored just twice, and has delivered one attacking return in five games.
Yet Declan Rice (£7.1m) tops the FPL points table for midfielders as of Sunday evening.
Is Rice’s emergence this season an indictment on midfielders in general or just the new way of things, with the introduction of Defensive Contribution Points (DefCon)? A bit of both, Clive.
This time last season, the best scoring midfielder, Muhammad Salah (£14.0 million), had 67 points more than Rice now! Bukayo Saka (£10.1 million) and Cole Palmer (£10.3m) both were also ‘centurions’ after Gameweek 15 of 2024/25. For some reason (injury/form) it just wasn’t a good campaign for the big players in midfield. In other positions, Erling Haaland (£15.0 million) and Daniel Munoz (£6.1 million) have proven that the ‘old ways’ can still win.
But beyond that, DefCon has ushered in a new era and helped long-overlooked players compete with FPL’s household names. Rice now has 12 DefCon points to his name after Saturday’s game. That’s the equivalent of four assists. It means 5.9 points per start, not 5.1. If you count DefCons as a “return,” that means Rice was only blank 28% of his starts, not 50%.
SAKA THREATENS
Rice is now in bigger hands than Saka, with the £3.0m saving (not to mention the better points) hard to argue with.
But with Salah and Palmer off the table for now, there will be plenty of managers who still feel comfortable owning Saka. He hasn’t actually been knocked out – if you count DefCon – in five Gameweeks. That streak gave him two goals, two assists and four DefCon points.
On Saturday he was a threat again. He was Arsenal’s top player in terms of touches in the penalty area (11), shots (four) and chances created (four). It was his cross shot that Emi Martinez (£5.1 million) paid out, with Leandro Trossard (£6.9 million) followed to score. Less than twenty minutes later, Saka had beaten Martinez – alone Boubacar camera (£4.9m) to kick off the target effort.
All things considered, he was right at the top on Saturday in terms of expected goal involvement (xGI) among midfielders (below) – as he has done over the last five gameweeks.
Could a double play in Arsenal’s midfield, rather than Rice versus Saka in a head-to-head battle, be the way to go with the defense slightly underpowered?
MERINO + EZE HALF TIME HALF TIME
With Arsenal trailing at half-time, Arteta left Mikel Merino (£6.0 million) and God bless you (£7.8 million).
Merino was always going to be a short-term player for the Gunners. The Spaniard had some credit in the bank after his recent goals Viktor Gyokeres (£8.8m) has only recently returned from injury. However, when the former’s form and the latter’s suitability started moving in opposite directions, it was only a matter of time.
Eze is something else. He will undoubtedly continue to play an important role in Arsenal’s season in the coming weeks and months.
But since his hat-trick in Gameweek 12, which attracted a new wave of owners, four positional rivals in central midfield/left wing have returned to full fitness: Call Maduyke (£6.8 million), Gabriel Martinelli (£6.8 million), Martin Odegaard (£7.8 million) and, after a shorter period, Trossard. The xMins are back, especially with the busy month ahead. No Gunner will escape any minute management during this period; Sake and Jurriën Hout (£6.5m) were indeed on the bench in Gameweek 14. But there aren’t as many serious threats to, say, Saka’s position as there are to Eze’s.
The former Palace man is probably not worth the risk at Christmas.
CALAFIORI BAN + ARTETA CONFIRMS MOSQUERA INJURY
Arsenal will be without Riccardo Calafiori (£5.8m) in Gameweek 16. The Italian picked up his fifth booking of the season on Saturday, meaning he will serve a one-match league ban.
And Cristhian Mosquera (£5.4m) will definitely come true too. Reports suggested the centre-back would be out for six to eight weeks and while Arteta did not confirm that timeline, he did confirm it would be ‘weeks’ for the young defender.
“He will be out for weeks, unfortunately it is a lot more than we expected. But the player felt it, so he will be out for weeks.” – Mikel Arteta on Cristhian Moskeura
WOOD BREAKS HIS DEFCON DUCK
The absence of Mosquera, along with the first choice pair William Saliba (£6.0 million) and Gabriel Magalhaes (£6.3m), saw Jurrien Timber at centre-back. He had also finished there against Brentford in midweek.
While the attacking threat at center back waned, defensive contributions rose – and Timber earned his first DefCon points of 2025/26.
If Arteta is to be believed, Saliba should be back on the bill in Gameweek 16, so Timber should resume his right-back duties soon.
‘We know what those two are [Gabriel and William Saliba] bring, especially in a game like this. But the other two [Piero Hincapie and Jurrien Timber]I think they were exceptional today too.” – Mikel Arteta
WHY DON’T WE HAVE VILLA PLAYERS?!
They are second in the table and have won nine of their last ten Premier League games.
A draw was the least they deserved on Saturday, as they went hand in hand with the title favorites:
So, given the shape, why don’t many of us own this? each Aston Villa players?
Firstly, they have been better as a collective, rather than offering too many standout individual players. And FPL is mainly about individuals.
Their two top scorers, Emiliano Buendia (£5.3 million) and Donyell Malen (£5.1m), are on just four goals apiece and are far from nailed down: they were both on the bench on Saturday and have only started 10 league matches in the 2025/2026 season.
No Villa player has more than three assists either. The points are simply distributed.
Last season’s big Fantasy success stories Morgan Rogers (£6.9 million) and Ollie Watkins (£8.5m), had also started slowly in early 2025/2026. Despite Villa’s renaissance, Watkins, who has looked sharper this week, tested David Raya (£6.0m) on Saturday – had just one league goal to his name before Gameweek 14. Rogers, meanwhile, has scored just one shot per 70 minutes this season; Ian Mates (£4.2m) can do that better.
Finally, they perform extremely well in terms of the expected objectives. Villa are ranked 14th for xG and 15th for xGC in 2025/26. So despite their exalted status, the lack of a true talisman and dubious underlying data make them an uncomfortable proposition.
There is one Villan who stands out at the moment: Matty Cash (£4.7m). Stripped of the competition that influences Lucas Digne (£4.5m) on the other flank, he has started every league match this season. He is one of the few defenders to score double figures for both shots (15) and chances created (13). Even then, his three goals came from an xG of 0.59 – so temper those expectations.
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