Reece James

PitchKeep Take · The Premier

Reece James is a defender for Chelsea, age 26, £5.5m. The Premier ranks him 91st overall by splitting Sleeper BPL 2025 (#70, 142.0 points) with the consensus of 5 other boards (84.2). Last year's Sleeper line ran 14 spots ahead of the expert/FPL mix. The third list keeps some of that production bump and refuses to throw the other boards out. That is the whole point of not just republishing The Pitch.

The 2025/26 Premier League line is 20 starts and 1957 minutes, 2 goals and 6 assists, 8 clean sheets, 20 goals against, 48 tackles and 80 CBI. Official FPL scored it at 115 points (4.0 per match) with 11 bonus. Sleeper's table turned the same counting stats into 142.0. 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: 1.04 xG, 3.2 xA, 4.24 xGI and 2.8 above expected assists. Set pieces: first-choice corners, first-choice direct free-kicks for Chelsea. The defensive events are the floor: 48 tackles, 80 clearances/blocks/interceptions, 8 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 ESPN PL 50 at 23; the coldest is FPL Form at 148.

Market: £5.5m, 13 boards on the file. Price is the FPL tax, not the rank. The Premier is who produced and who the boards still believe. FPL's own EP-next is 2.5. ICT 106.1.

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: Caoimhín Kelleher, Senne Lammens, Eberechi Eze. Versus The Pitch (Sleeper-only #70), the hybrid moves him down to #91. 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 Chelsea still gives them the ball. 1957 minutes says yes. The 2026/27 FPL price (£5.5m) 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 6 assists are how a defender outruns his GA column. Without those, you are betting 8 clean sheets and the CBI stream (80) against 20 goals against at −2 a piece. Chelsea's 2026/27 defensive shape is therefore half of this player's rank. The other half already happened, across 20 starts.

How to use the file: The Pitch is the Sleeper-only 400 (he is #70 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.