Daniel Ballard

PitchKeep Take · The Premier

Daniel Ballard is a defender for Sunderland, age 26, £5.0m. The Premier ranks him 76th overall by splitting Sleeper BPL 2025 (#114, 110.4 points) with the consensus of 3 other boards (68.0). The industry still has him 46 spots ahead of the 2025/26 Sleeper count. The Premier pays that reputation something, not everything. Brand does not outrun a down year, and a down year does not erase a player Sunderland still builds around.

The 2025/26 Premier League line is 24 starts and 2144 minutes, 2 goals and 2 assists, 6 clean sheets, 35 goals against, 33 tackles and 231 CBI. Official FPL scored it at 116 points (4.0 per match) with 9 bonus. Sleeper's table turned the same counting stats into 110.4. Defenders get 10 a goal, 7 an assist, 6 a clean sheet, and −2 a goal against. CBI at 0.4 and tackles at 1 are how a centre-back cracks the overall 50.

Underlying: 2.46 xG, 0.63 xA, 3.09 xGI. The defensive events are the floor: 33 tackles, 231 clearances/blocks/interceptions, 6 shutouts. Sleeper is built to notice that. ICT and xGI boards are not, which is why a centre-back's spread on this board is usually ugly and still informative. The friendliest board is RotoWire GW1 at 21; the coldest is FPL xGI at 168.

Market: £5.0m, 9 boards on the file. That is leftover money for a Premier-ranked name. If the minutes hold, this board already voted. FPL's own EP-next is 2.2. ICT 121.5.

Instruction: deep-league starter, shallow-league watchlist. The 2025/26 line got him onto the 400. A role change gets him off it. Watch minutes, not vibes. Nearby on The Premier: Jack Hinshelwood, Alex Iwobi, Cristhian Mosquera. Versus The Pitch (Sleeper-only #114), the hybrid moves him up to #76. That move is the third list doing its job.

He is 26, which on this board is neither a dart nor a warning label. Prime-age defenders get ranked on what they just did and whether Sunderland still gives them the ball. 2144 minutes says yes. The 2026/27 FPL price (£5.0m) is the app's guess at whether that continues. The Premier is the blend of that guess and the box score.

Full-backs and centre-backs separate on this board by attacking events. 2 goals and 2 assists are how a defender outruns his GA column. Without those, you are betting 6 clean sheets and the CBI stream (231) against 35 goals against at −2 a piece. Sunderland's 2026/27 defensive shape is therefore half of this player's rank. The other half already happened, across 24 starts.

How to use the file: The Pitch is the Sleeper-only 400 (he is #114 there). The Premier is the 50/50 with every other board we track. Attack, Midfield, Defence, and Keepers re-rank the same Sleeper table by position. BK Value on this page follows The Premier when you are on the hybrid calculator and The Pitch when you are on the Sleeper calculator. Same curve either way - 12,000 at 1.01.