Everton FPL: Who To Own, Captain And Avoid

Everton: buy the back door, ignore the front

Everton's defence ranks seventh-meanest in the league on our numbers, and the fixtures are about to be kind to it. Their attack ranks 16th, and the fixtures are about to be cruel to it. That's the whole page in one line: if you're buying Everton, you're buying clean sheets, not goals.

The run tells you why. HUL (A) and COV (H) are the sort of games a decent defence keeps tidy, and even the harder trips — ARS (A), NEW (A), BRE (A) — hurt the attacking picks far more than the defenders, who can still bank two points for showing up and the odd bonus for blocking things. Meanwhile, an attack sitting fifth-bottom is being asked to score against Chelsea, Arsenal and Newcastle. No thank you.

So who carries it? Tarkowski tops our list, and at £6.1m he's the premium way in — good for roughly 5 a week over the next six, already in about 1.5 in 10 squads, so no bragging rights, just points. The pragmatist's pick is Mykolenko at £4.6m: hardly anyone owns him (fewer than 1 in 2 in 10), he's projected within touching distance of teammates a pound dearer, and cheap defenders who actually start are the whole point of the exercise. Branthwaite at £5.5m splits the difference nicely if you want the differential. Pickford does the same job in goal for £5.5m.

The honest caveat: none of these are stamped nailed. All the main defenders have started five of the recent games, which is as close to certainty as Everton gives you, but it's not a guarantee, and one dropped teamsheet changes the sums on a £4.6m punt fast.

What about the attack? Barry has the penalties and Dewsbury-Hall sits on corners, which is worth knowing — but you don't buy set-piece takers in a bottom-five attack heading into Chelsea, Arsenal and Newcastle. That's paying for a ceiling the fixtures won't let him reach.

The call: buy the defence — Tarkowski if the budget's there, Mykolenko if it isn't — and leave every Everton attacker on the shelf until the fixtures turn. The value here is all at one end of the pitch.