Graph shows the top 25 Points per million (PPM) players based on my own points predictor from the end of last season and this seasons player prices, I filtered the graph to only players who played in 15 games or more and played 75 mins or more per game played.

What have I done?

With the increase of centre backs pricing for the new season I wanted to explore if DefCon defenders will still be the best picks when trying to find value - in short; yes... but also no.

To do this I dug up my points predictor from last season - I say points predictor, it's more of a points validator, it shows how players should have scored in matches played based on the data from them rather than necessarily showing future points score predictions. Anyway, I went and added this seasons prices and calculated the Points per Million for their new prices to find who the best value players will likely be for the upcoming season.

First the caveats, there are so many manager changes and transfers, the players that show up aren't necessarily going to perform the same as last season but hopefully it gives an idea of the type of players that will be value for money. The xPoints are based on the old BPS model but doing some quick calculations I predict that even for the players most effected by the new BPS model it would only cause +/- 0.15 xPoints per game and that type of player is very rare so the new BPS's affect will be pretty negligible.

So what can we tell?

• DefCon will still be king - With Senesi, Lacroix and to a slightly lesser extent Thiaw, it shows if a defender is passing the DefCon threshold more often than not then even a price tag of 6m is well worth the money. Even Gabriel at 8m has 0.659 PPM which is okay as well, the issue is only Thiaw out of those players will be at the same club and with the same centre back partner for the start of the season so it may be a case of waiting till the season is underway to identify who the DefCon defenders will be this season especially as the centre backs who aren't hitting DefCon do seem to be poor value for money.
• The Aston Villa defence has been under priced - Mings topping the charts with Pau not far behind shows Villa defenders being at 4.5m could be a steal. It's worth noting, neither of these players have an especially high DefCon per game, Mings around 6.3 and Pau at 5.3 both way off the threshold of 10, instead they get their points through Villa's clean sheet potential (they were arguably unlucky to not get more CS last season) combined with an okay attacking potential with just under 0.1xG per game each. The issue with these two though is that they either play 90 or not at all so something more to keep an eye on rather than act on. FYI Konsa has a middling rank, mainly due to a complete lack of attacking and DefCon threat.
• 4.5m fullbacks are fine - Kadioglu, Bogle, Mitchell, Gudmundsson and Hume all rank in the top 25 despite not being hugely attacking players (Bogle is much more attacking than the others). The fullbacks will hold the fort if you can't stretch the budget 0.5m to 1.5m more for a defcon defender, but with all newly promoted defenders being 4m, if there's one or two of them that get DefCon most matches, making them average around 3 points per game they'd likely be even better value.
• 6/6.5m midfielders are the sweet spot - If you want value and the potential for big scores the 6/6.5m midfielders are where you need to look and they can either be DefCon magnets like Anderson and Garner or the goalscoring and assisting threats of players like Tavernier, Schade and Sarr. Ultimately they seem to be the best place to find both value and pure points per match.
• Calvert-Lewin will break hearts once more - if only he could match his xG.

Conclusion:

If you want value for money invest in the few defenders that will more often than not pass the DefCon threshold, see which Villa defenders become nailed, especially if Konsa ends up leaving and invest in the mid-priced midfielders to get the best mix of points and pure value for money.

Data used was gathered from a mix of FPL API and understat