Over the next five gameweeks our model projects 14 points for Ballard and 18 for Mendy, so Mendy is the pick.

What does this comparison account for?

Price, ownership, form, expected goals and assists per 90, minutes reliability, and the difficulty of each player's next five fixtures.

Ballard vs Mendy

Head-to-head over the next 5 gameweeks. Our model favours Mendy by 4 projected points.

Ballard

SUNDERLAND · DEF · £5.0

projected points / 5 GW

Buy78%

FUL (H)BRE (A)ARS (H)MCI (A)BHA (H)

Mendy

HULL CITY · DEF · £4.0

projected points / 5 GW

Buy78%

COV (A)AVL (H)CHE (A)NEW (A)EVE (H)

Stat by stat

£5.0Price£4.0

8Total points16

4.0Form8.0

4.0Points / game8.0

4.7%Owned5.0%

180Minutes121

0Goals1

0Assists0

0.03xG0.29

0.01xA0.00

1.9ICT8.5

3.2Avg FDR (5)3.0

14Projected pts18

The verdict

Mendy comes out ahead on the five-gameweek projection (18 vs 14), largely because of the fixture run (average difficulty 3.0) and better current form.

Buy — Ballard is one of the better DEF options for the next 5 gameweeks.

Buy — Mendy is one of the better DEF options for the next 5 gameweeks.

More DEF comparisons

Ballard vs Ajayi Ballard vs Tarkowski Ballard vs De Cuyper Ballard vs Egan Ballard vs Kayode Ballard vs Gvardiol