With Mikel Arteta revealing last Friday that Arsenal defender Gabriel (£6.4m) will be out "for a few weeks" due to an injury picked up while on international duty with Brazil, The Scout highlights the best replacements.
Nico O’Reilly (Man City) £5.0m, 4.0% owned
Having recently secured a regular starting role for Manchester City, O’Reilly has proven to be one of the most consistent defenders in 2025/26 Fantasy. The left-back has blanked just twice over his eight starts, totalling 50 points across those contests.
Pep Guardiola’s side have home matches against Leeds United, Sunderland and West Ham United across the next five Gameweeks, which lifts their chances of clean sheets.
Although there is a chance he could be rotated for one of those contests due to the busy upcoming schedule, O’Reilly’s numbers suggest he can also deliver attacking returns during that period. His six shots and seven shots in the box both rank top among defenders in Fantasy over the last four Gameweeks.
The 20-year-old's pitch-time over the medium term also looks promising, with his positional rival Rayan Ait-Nouri (£5.7m) set to depart for the Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) next month.
Daniel Munoz (Crystal Palace) £5.9m, 19.4% owned
Along with his team-mate Marc Guehi (£5.1m), Crystal Palace’s Colombian has mainly kept pace with the Arsenal defenders across the opening 12 Gameweeks.
Indeed, Munoz climbed ahead of Arsenal’s Jurrien Timber (£6.3m) into second place in his position over the weekend with a goal, clean sheet and three bonus points earning him a bumper 14-point haul against Wolverhampton Wanderers.
His huge all-round potential has made the Palace wing-back the priority pick in defence ahead of Saturday's 13:30 GMT deadline, brought in by 148,000+ managers for his favourable upcoming schedule.
The Eagles host Manchester United this weekend before back-to-back visits against two of the bottom six sides, Burnley and Fulham, in the subsequent two Gameweeks.
One word of caution on the Colombian, though - he picked up his fourth caution of the campaign at the weekend and would earn a one-match ban if he is booked in any of those next three contests.
Trevoh Chalobah (Chelsea) £5.1m, 8.6% owned
The centre-back has emerged as one of the most consistent defenders in Fantasy during his breakout campaign with Chelsea.
Chalobah has blanked just twice in his 11 appearances thanks to his multiple routes to returns. He’s produced two goals, an assist, six clean sheets, eight defensive contribution points and two bonus points to total 61 points. Indeed, his 5.5 points per match is better than the 5.2 of Arsenal's Riccardo Calafiori (£5.8m).
While his weekend encounter with the Gunners suggests Chalobah is worth benching in Gameweek 13, matches against Leeds and Everton in the subsequent three rounds of fixtures give him the chance to deliver again.
William Saliba (Arsenal) £6.0m, 12.7% owned
The Frenchman has been left trailing in the wake of his fellow centre-back Gabriel, with his total of 41 points almost HALF the 81 of the Brazilian.
However, Saliba does tend to offer more threat from set-pieces on the rare occasions that Gabriel has missed out for Arsenal.
As a secure route into a defence that has already helped the Gunners serve up a league-high seven clean sheets, Saliba could be the ideal replacement with Gabriel sidelined.
Joachim Andersen (Fulham) £4.5m, 2.9% owned
The Fulham centre-back is the second-best player for defensive contribution points in 2025/26, earning 16 of them across his 11 appearances.
If you’re looking for a cut-price defender you can rotate in and out of your team, Andersen's schedule in Gameweeks 16-18 is particularly appealing.
According to the Fixture Difficulty Ratings (FDR), where the difficulty of each fixture is ranked from one to five, with one being the easiest possible match and five being the hardest, all three of Fulham's matches - at home to Nottingham Forest and away to Burnley and West Ham - score only two.
Nikola Milenkovic (Nott'm Forest) £5.2m, 3.7% owned
Forest's 3-0 win at Liverpool last weekend showed their growing improvement under Sean Dyche and earned them a somewhat belated first clean sheet of the season.
The underlying data also backs up a significant upturn in resilience since Dyche replaced Ange Postecoglou. Indeed, they have conceded just two big chances - situations where a player is expected to score - over the last four Gameweeks, the best record in the league.
If they can build on that shutout at Anfield, Dyche's side have an extended run of favourable opponents, with just one of their next nine matches scoring more than three in the FDR.
Forest's next nine matches
| GW | Opp. | FDR |
| 13 | Brighton (H) | 3 |
|---|---|---|
| 14 | Wolves (A) | 2 |
| 15 | Everton (A) | 3 |
| 16 | Spurs (H) | 3 |
| 17 | Fulham (A) | 3 |
| 18 | Man City (H) | 4 |
| 19 | Everton (H) | 2 |
| 20 | Aston Villa (A) | 3 |
| 21 | West Ham (A) | 2 |
Milenkovic was a huge aerial threat at free-kicks and corners last season, with five goals and two assists to his name.
Although he's yet to score this season, Milenkovic's two headed shots at set-pieces is more than any other Forest defender since Dyche took charge, suggesting he could be a big success at both ends of the pitch during the coming period.