Time to go five at the back? The FPL talking point

What on earth is DefCon?

This season defensive contribution points - or 'DefCons' - are delivering huge hauls for many FPL managers.

Every clearance, block, interception and tackle could lead to points.

With defenders being so valuable right now, are defender-first strategies the way to go?

Expert FPL Heisenberg - and the guys from the FPL Podcast by BBC Sport - debate this week's FPL talking point.

Don't miss our FPL special Q&A with expert FPL Heisenberg live on the BBC Sport website at 15:30 BST on Friday, 3 October.

FPL Heisenberg: Selecting defenders who excel in defensive contributions has its benefits. To highlight this let's discuss Marcos Senesi, who's been worth his weight in gold this season.

The Bournemouth defender has achieved defensive contribution points in every game this season. That's a huge 12 points, which is the same as a defender scoring two goals in six games - which is rare and harder to predict.

Senesi is the highest-scoring defender in the game, partly due to his defensive contribution points. In fact, he's the third-highest points scorer in the whole game - only Erling Haaland and Antoine Semenyo have more.

Statman Dave: DefCon at the back is the strategy this season. I've been banging on about it. Six of the top 10 players in the game are defenders.

Defenders are so, so, so good this season. Senesi, Omar Alderete, Marc Guehi, Gabriel, Jurrien Timber, Tino Livramento.

There are players like Moses Caicedo who have scored more points that Mohamed Salah - we'd never usually see that in fantasy football. It's kind of broken the value of the game.

When you look at the top 12 players from a midfield perspective, Semenyo and Salah are the only players over £7m. So, we're in a weird sphere at the back and in midfield - it's kind of broken the game, you could have £20m in the bank just sitting there.

FPL Heisenberg: We shouldn't be blinded by defensive contributions. It's still worth picking defenders with favourable fixtures, who play for teams with a solid defence and those defenders with strong attacking threat.

Take James Tarkowski for example - he's good for defensive contributions but looking at the fixtures I struggle to see many clean sheets for Everton in the coming gameweeks. He also doesn't get many points through goals and assists, with no attacking contributions so far this season.

To summarise, defensive contributions are massively important when picking defenders, but not the be all and end all of FPL this season. We shouldn't forget about those attacking defenders from teams who are likely to get clean sheets.