Players/Sunderland/Defender

Daniel Ballard

DEFSunderland27 years oldat the club since 2022

75% chance of playingHamstring injury - 75% chance of playing25 Sept

Next: Brighton at home, Sat 10 Oct, 15:003

2026/27 season. Owned by 2.5% of managers (275,335). Transfers this gameweek: -14569.

Top 10k: 3.0% · Top 100k: 3.0% GW5 estimates

Compare

Price: £4.9m; -0.1m since season start
Points: 14; 2.8 per game
Form: 2.0; points per game, last 30 days
Minutes: 450; 5 starts
xGI: 0.47; 0.09 per 90
Bonus: 0; 31 BPS
xMins next: 62; 69% to start, 64% for 60+
xPoints next: 1.5; FPL's official expected points, GW6

Availability

FPL updated 25 Sept

Doubtful75% chanceFPL updated 25 Sept

Hamstring injury - 75% chance of playing

25 SeptDoubt
Hamstring injury - 75% chance of playing

Profile against other defenders

per 90 minutes, this season

Points per 90
352.80
Clean sheets per 90
320.20
xGC per 90 (lower is better)
341.73
xGI per 90
470.09
Defensive contributions per 90
779.8
Bonus per 90
290.00
Threat per 90
537.0
Start rate
74100%

Percentile among 85 defenders with at least 225 minutes this season. 100 is the best.

2026/27 gameweek by gameweek

5 appearances, 14 points

Bars are points, the line is expected goal involvements.

GW	Opponent	Result	Min	Pts	CS	BPS	xG	xA	xGI	xGC	Price
1	IPS A	L 1-2	90	0	0	4	0.00	0.01	0.01	1.80	5.0
2	FUL H	W 1-0	90	8	1	27	0.03	0.00	0.03	0.95	5.0
3	BRE A	D 1-1	90	4	0	12	0.06	0.14	0.20	1.21	5.0
4	ARS H	L 0-2	90	0	0	0	0.08	0.01	0.09	1.88	4.9
5	MCI A	L 3-5	90	2	0	-12	0.14	0.00	0.14	2.82	4.9
Season			450	14	1	31	0.31	0.16	0.47	8.66

Where the points came from

14 points

Appearances50%+10
Clean sheets20%+4
Defensive contributions30%+6
Goals conceded-4
Cards-2

The categories add up to FPL's total of 14.

Form, minutes and splits

Expected minutes, Gameweek 6Nailed

xMins: 62; one fixture
Starts: 69%; 90 minutes when he does
Plays 60+: 64%; the xPoints threshold
Appears: 71%; FPL says 75% fit

GW1

GW2

GW3

GW4

GW5

Ballard started 5 of the last 5 gameweeks (90, 90, 90 minutes most recently). FPL puts his chance of playing at 75%. The chance of sixty minutes blends the site's own estimate (68%) with the xPoints model's (60%). Recent weeks count most; a solid bar is a start, a pale one is minutes from the bench.

Last 5 average

2.8

season 2.8, 0.0

Returns

20%

1 of 5 games with 5+

Hauls

0 with 10+

Blanks

60%

3 with 2 or fewer

Last five

IPS A

FUL H

BRE A

ARS H

MCI A

Fixture-adjusted form, last 5 gameweeksFaced strong opponents

Adjusted: 2.9; points per gameweek
Raw: 2.8; +0.1 adjusted against raw
Opponents: 1.10x; their attack, 1.00 is average

GW1IPS A · attack 9th0 ×1.01 -0.0
GW2FUL H · attack 16th8 ×1.01 8.1
GW3BRE A · attack 3rd4 ×1.18 4.4
GW4ARS H · attack 6th0 ×1.06 -0.1
GW5MCI A · attack 2nd2 ×1.22 2.0

About what it looks: the opponents were close to average. Points above the appearance points are scaled by the opponent's attack (expected goals for per game from the analytics table), shrunk toward the league average early in the season and capped between 0.6 and 1.5.

Starts

5 of 5

100% start rate

Minutes per start

5 full games

60+ minutes

100%

of team games

From the bench

0 unused

Home2 games

Points: 8
Per game: 4.0
xGI per game: 0.06

Away3 games

Points: 6
Per game: 2.0
xGI per game: 0.12

Expected against actual

On track

Stat	Actual	Expected	Difference
Goals	0	0.31	-0.31
Assists	0	0.16	-0.16
Goal involvements	0	0.47	-0.47
Goals conceded	10	8.66	+1.34

Expected numbers are FPL's own xG, xA and xGC, summed over the gameweeks played. A big positive difference tends to fall back; a big negative one tends to catch up.

xPoints record

frozen at each deadline, graded after

Next gameweek (GW6): 1.5 expected points, FPL's official expected points, GW6.

GW	Projected	Actual	Difference
1	2.2	0	-2.2
2	2.2	8	+5.8
3	4.0	4	0.0
4	4.0	0	-4.0
5	3.0	2	-1.0

Average miss 2.6 points over 5 graded gameweeks, over-projected on average by 0.28. How the feed is graded.

Similar players

DEFRichardsCRY
£4.9m14 pts0.03 xGICompare
DEFBotmanNEW
£5.0m15 pts0.04 xGICompare
DEFMingsAVL
£4.5m10 pts0.08 xGICompare
DEFCanvotCRY
£4.8m10 pts0.04 xGICompare
DEFThiawNEW
£5.0m14 pts0.02 xGICompare

Nearest by per-90 profile and price among players in the same position with enough minutes. Not a recommendation, a comparison.

Previous seasons

Season	Pts	Per 90	Min	G	A	CS	xGI	Bonus	Price
2025/26	116	4.87	2144	2	2	6	3.1	9	4.5 to 4.6

Your team

Checking your squad.

Fixtures ahead

GW6
Brighton H
Sat 10 Oct, 15:00 · attack 1st of 20
3
GW7
Bournemouth A
Sun 18 Oct, 14:00 · attack 14th of 20
3
GW8
Leeds H
Sun 25 Oct, 16:30 · attack 11th of 20
3
GW9
Coventry City A
Sat 31 Oct, 15:00 · attack 20th of 20
2
GW10
Chelsea H
Sun 8 Nov, 14:00 · attack 4th of 20
4
GW11
Aston Villa A
Sat 21 Nov, 15:00 · attack 18th of 20
3
GW12
Spurs H
Sun 29 Nov, 14:05 · attack 19th of 20
2
GW13
Liverpool A
Wed 2 Dec, 20:00 · attack 8th of 20
4

Average difficulty over the next five: 3. 1 is easiest, 5 hardest, by FPL's rating. The rank is the opponent's attack or defence among the 20 clubs by expected goals this season, 1 being the strongest.

Value over replacement

points above the cheap option

Budget option58th of 217 defenders by PAR

Per gameweek: 2.6; projected, next 5
Replacement: 4.3; best cheap defenders
PAR: -1.8; over the replacement
Per £m: floor; 0.4m above the floor

-0.9 against players at his price. Replacement is the median of the best playing players at or below the floor price for the position; per million is PAR over the price above that floor. Every player by PAR.

Price and ownership

Ownership by rank

Sample	Selected by	EO
Top 10k	3.0%	0.0%
Top 100k	3.0%	0.0%

GW5 estimates · 300 managers per cohort · Updated 3 Oct, 06:09 UTC

A daily sample spread across 20 rank bands in each cohort, using FPL's Overall standings at collection time (including its tie order). These are estimates, so small percentage differences can be sampling noise. Ownership counts all 15 players in the published GW5 squad, including the bench; transfers since the deadline are private. EO (effective ownership) uses FPL's scoring multipliers: captains count twice, triple captains three times, and only scoring players count. EO includes FPL’s finalized substitutions.

Daily since 9 Aug: blue is price, grey is ownership, dots are the days the price moved (1 so far).

This gameweek

no change

price so far

Transfers in

18K out

Ownership, 7 days

0.0

percentage points

Towards a change

57%

falling

Tonight

57%

FPL's projection, falling

Tonight's likely price changes

Set pieces

Penaltiesnot a taker
Club order: Diarra, E.Le Fée
Corners and indirect free kicksnot a taker
Club order: E.Le Fée, Xhaka, Hume
Direct free kicksnot a taker
Club order: N.Angulo, Xhaka, E.Le Fée

Also at Sunderland

FWDBrobbey
£5.7m24 pts
MIDXhaka
£5.5m21 pts
MIDE.Le Fée
£5.7m18 pts
MIDN.Angulo
£5.0m16 pts
FWDIsidor
£5.5m15 pts
DEFMeunier
£4.5m14 pts

Every Sunderland player

From the analytics feed

The analytics feed has no extra tags for this player yet. Most of its tables start after Gameweek 3.

Go deeper

Compare: this player against up to three others
Player tables: every player, sortable
xPoints: this week's projections and the optimiser
Fixture Planner: the next seven gameweeks for every club
Accuracy: how the projections are graded

FPL data as of 3 Oct. Pages refresh about every 15 minutes.