# De Cuyper leads the gameweek 7 defenders

> 5.37 expected points, with 1.44 of it from clean sheets alone.

By the evmax model · 14 October 2026 · https://evmax.ai/fpl/gw7/defenders/

De Cuyper (BHA) projects 5.37: 1.44 from clean sheets, 0.03 from defensive contribution and 0.61 from bonus. Where a defender's points come from matters as much as the total — a clean-sheet projection lives or dies on one fixture, while defensive contribution pays regardless of the scoreline.

**Bottom line:** De Cuyper at 5.1 is the defensive pick of the gameweek.

## The data

| # | Player | Team | xPts | CS pts | DefCon pts | Bonus | Price |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | De Cuyper | BHA | 5.37 | 1.44 | 0.03 | 0.61 | 5.1 |
| 2 | Van Hecke | TOT | 5.10 | 1.51 | 0.60 | 0.43 | 4.9 |
| 3 | Gabriel | ARS | 4.79 | 1.76 | 0.39 | 0.36 | 7.9 |
| 4 | Silva | BOU | 4.75 | 1.29 | 0.78 | 0.21 | 5.0 |
| 5 | Calafiori | ARS | 4.61 | 1.77 | 0.04 | 0.20 | 5.9 |
| 6 | Guéhi | MCI | 4.57 | 1.71 | 0.15 | 0.33 | 6.0 |
| 7 | Truffert | BOU | 4.49 | 1.32 | 0.57 | 0.52 | 5.4 |
| 8 | Vuskovic | BHA | 4.39 | 1.42 | 0.69 | 0.14 | 5.1 |
| 9 | Hill | BOU | 4.29 | 1.32 | 0.77 | 0.25 | 5.5 |
| 10 | Leno | FUL | 4.18 | 1.42 | 0.00 | 0.66 | 4.5 |
| 11 | Donnarumma | MCI | 4.18 | 1.63 | 0.00 | 0.46 | 5.5 |
| 12 | Raya | ARS | 4.18 | 1.70 | 0.00 | 0.62 | 6.1 |
| 13 | Mukiele | SUN | 3.87 | 0.81 | 0.85 | 0.37 | 5.4 |
| 14 | Kinsky | TOT | 3.83 | 1.47 | 0.00 | 0.48 | 4.5 |
| 15 | Bassey | FUL | 3.82 | 1.42 | 0.28 | 0.27 | 4.5 |
| 16 | Muharemović | LEE | 3.81 | 0.97 | 0.91 | 0.21 | 5.0 |
| 17 | Tarkowski | EVE | 3.79 | 0.84 | 0.94 | 0.31 | 6.2 |
| 18 | Hall | NEW | 3.79 | 0.95 | 0.49 | 0.55 | 5.3 |
| 19 | Verbruggen | BHA | 3.76 | 1.40 | 0.00 | 0.47 | 4.6 |
| 20 | Boscagli | BHA | 3.75 | 1.45 | 0.17 | 0.26 | 4.5 |

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Method: Market odds (de-vigged) → Dixon-Coles scorelines → 50k Monte-Carlo simulations, scored on the official Fantasy Premier League points table.
Data license: CC BY 4.0 (attribution: evmax, https://evmax.ai). Machine-readable JSON: https://evmax.ai/api/fpl/gw7/defenders.json