Fantasy Premier League overhauled its scoring for the 2025/26 season with one of the most significant rule changes in the game's history: defensive contributions, immediately nicknamed DefCon by the FPL community. For the first time, defenders and defensive midfielders can earn bonus points simply for doing their defensive job — clearing, blocking, intercepting, and tackling — regardless of whether their team keeps a clean sheet. This fundamentally changes how you value defensive assets. A solid defensive midfielder who was previously just a budget filler now has a legitimate route to 2 bonus points per game on top of his standard scoring. A marauding centre-back who racks up CBIT actions is now genuinely investable. This guide explains exactly how DefCon works, which player types benefit most, and what it means for how you should build your squad in 2025/26 and beyond.
What Are Defensive Contributions — The Official Rule
The defensive contributions rule was introduced by the Premier League for the 2025/26 FPL season. According to the official FPL rules, the scoring works as follows:
For defenders: a player classified as a defender earns +2 points if he accumulates 10 or more CBIT actions in a single match. CBIT stands for Clearances, Blocks, Interceptions, and Tackles. For midfielders and forwards: a player classified as a midfielder or forward earns +2 points if he accumulates 12 or more CBIRT actions in a single match. CBIRT adds Ball Recoveries to the four defensive categories above. The bonus is capped at +2 per player per match regardless of how many CBIT or CBIRT actions are recorded.
This is important to understand clearly. DefCon is not a points-per-action system — it is a threshold bonus. You either earn the 2 points or you do not. This means the most valuable DefCon assets are players who consistently and reliably reach the threshold, not players who occasionally put in a heroic defensive performance. Repeatability is the key metric, not ceiling.
Why This Rule Changes Squad Building Fundamentally
Before DefCon, the value of a defensive player in FPL was almost entirely binary: clean sheet or not. A 4.5m defender who played 90 minutes in a 2-1 loss scored 2 points. A 4.5m defender who played 90 minutes in a 1-0 win scored 6 points. The difference of 4 points came entirely from the collective defensive performance of his whole team, not from anything he personally did.
DefCon breaks that binary. A 4.5m defender who racks up 11 CBIT actions in a 2-1 loss now scores 4 points — appearance 2 plus DefCon 2. He is suddenly more valuable than before, even in defeat. A budget defensive midfielder who consistently racks up 13 or more CBIRT actions per game now averages 2 additional points per match simply for doing his job — and that is worth approximately 76 additional points across a 38-game season if he plays every minute.
The structural consequence: cheap defenders and defensive midfielders who are high-CBIT volume players have a new, independent scoring floor that exists regardless of their team's defensive performance. This makes them significantly more reliable than their pre-DefCon prices suggest. The market is still catching up — which means there is genuine pricing inefficiency to exploit, especially early in the season.
CBIT and CBIRT: What Each Action Means
The Premier League's official stats hub tracks these actions for every player in every match. Clearances are any action by a defending player that removes the ball from a dangerous area near their own goal. Blocks are actions interposing your body to prevent a shot or cross from reaching its intended destination. Interceptions are reads of play that allow a defender to cut out a pass before it reaches the intended recipient. Tackles are winning the ball from an opponent in a direct challenge. Ball Recoveries — the additional category for CBIRT — are gaining possession of a loose ball in a contested or transitional situation. This extra category helps midfielders and forwards accumulate CBIRT volume through pressing and covering ground.
Which Player Types Benefit Most From DefCon
Not all defenders are equal under the new system. The Aggressive Centre-Back for a mid-table or lower club is the most reliable DefCon profile. A physically dominant CB who plays for a team that frequently defends under sustained pressure will rack up clearances and blocks at a high rate. Screen for CBs averaging 5 or more clearances per 90 AND 1.5 or more tackles per 90 AND 0.5 or more blocks per 90. A player hitting all three of those benchmarks will typically reach the 10-action threshold in 50 to 65 percent of his starts.
The Defensive Midfielder is the second major archetype. A DM whose job is to sit in front of the defensive line, win second balls, cut out passing lanes, and press the opposition has every category of action available to him. DMs averaging 3 or more interceptions per 90, 2 or more tackles per 90, and 3 or more ball recoveries per 90 are in strong DefCon territory — the sum of those three alone is 8 actions, meaning clearances and blocks are a bonus on top.
For a full breakdown of which specific player profiles and screening criteria identify the most reliable DefCon scorers, our DefCon farming guide covers the full data-led identification process.
How DefCon Interacts With Clean Sheet Bonuses
DefCon and clean sheet bonuses are completely independent scoring events — they stack. A defender who keeps a clean sheet AND records 10 or more CBIT actions earns both the clean sheet bonus (6 points for a defender) AND the DefCon bonus (+2). In a clean sheet game with DefCon, a budget centre-back can score 10 or more points before any attacking contributions. That is exceptional value at 4.5m or below.
The key implication: clean sheets are now a bonus on top of an already-viable defensive asset rather than the only reason to own a budget defender. This makes defensive selections less binary and more predictable — and it means a budget defender facing a poor-attacking team is now doubly attractive: he has both clean sheet probability AND DefCon probability running in parallel, independently.
Screening for DefCon Candidates: The Data Approach
Because DefCon is threshold-based, screening for reliable candidates requires looking at match-by-match CBIT data rather than season averages. A player averaging 9.5 CBIT per game but reaching 10 in only 30 percent of matches is far less valuable than a player averaging 10.5 CBIT per game who hits the threshold in 70 percent of matches. The distribution matters, not just the mean.
Use the Premier League's stats platform to find players with high average CBIT or CBIRT per 90, then check match logs on FBref or Sofascore to calculate their threshold consistency rate — the percentage of starts where they actually crossed the DefCon line. A threshold consistency rate above 50 percent is the minimum bar for selecting a player specifically for DefCon returns.
DefCon and Budget Building
The most immediate practical impact of DefCon for most FPL managers is in budget construction. In a standard squad, your 3 budget defenders are now an active scoring source if you select correctly. Target budget defenders with DefCon rates above 50 percent and you add approximately 3 to 4 expected points per week from your defensive budget that was previously generating very little in non-clean-sheet weeks. Across a season, that compounds to 100 or more additional points.
The constraint: do not sacrifice clean sheet probability entirely for DefCon. The optimal budget defensive pick combines both — a team with moderate clean sheet probability around 30 to 35 percent per game AND a player with 50 percent or more DefCon rate. That combination produces expected points per game of approximately 5 for a 4.5m player. That is exceptional value relative to price.
For how the two-of-each chip system interacts with squad construction and the DefCon meta, our full 2025/26 chips guide is the companion read.
Common DefCon Misconceptions to Correct Now
DefCon only matters if my team keeps clean sheets — wrong. DefCon is entirely independent of clean sheet outcomes. A defender in a 3-2 loss who records 11 CBIT actions earns the DefCon bonus regardless. This independence is the entire value proposition. Expensive premium defenders benefit most — not necessarily. Premium attacking full-backs often have lower CBIT counts because they operate further up the pitch. The DefCon edge is concentrated in the 4.0m to 5.5m range. The threshold is easy to hit for most defenders — it is not. 10 CBIT actions in a single match is a genuine defensive workload. Many Premier League defenders average 7 to 8 CBIT per game and only reach 10 in their highest-pressure matches. And midfielders get the same DefCon rate as defenders — they do not. The threshold is higher at 12 CBIRT, and genuine DMs rather than standard midfielders are the best candidates.
DefCon is not about finding defenders who score goals. It is about finding defenders who consistently cross a defensive action threshold that earns them 2 guaranteed bonus points — independently of clean sheets, independently of their team's attacking output, and independently of results. That repeatability is the edge. The market prices defenders on clean sheet probability. DefCon adds a second, uncorrelated scoring stream that the market is still learning to price correctly.
The Oracle Takeaway
DefCon is the most significant FPL scoring change in recent seasons — and it creates a genuine pricing inefficiency that the market has not yet fully absorbed. Managers who understand how to identify reliable DefCon scorers will extract significant value from their defensive budget, freeing up funds for premium attackers while maintaining a solid defensive scoring floor.
Four actions to take immediately: Identify 2 to 3 budget defenders in your squad who are genuine DefCon candidates using Premier League stats data. Stop judging budget defenders purely on clean sheet probability — add their DefCon probability as a separate scoring stream. Look at the schedule for the first 10 gameweeks and identify which cheap defensive assets face the highest volume of pressing opponents. Use DefCon reliability data to make transfer decisions — a budget defender with 65 percent DefCon rate is more predictably valuable than one with 25 percent DefCon rate, even if the latter has marginally better clean sheet odds.
FPL Oracle's squad analysis accounts for DefCon probability alongside clean sheet probability for every defender in your squad. When you ask Oracle to evaluate your defensive structure or suggest transfers, it uses CBIT consistency data — not just ownership and form — to identify which defensive assets are genuinely undervalued under the new scoring rules. Analyse your defensive picks with FPL Oracle and find out which of your current defenders are genuine DefCon assets.
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