Rio Cardines

PitchKeep Take · The Premier

Rio Cardines is a defender for Crystal Palace, age 20, £4.5m. The Premier ranks him 403rd overall by splitting Sleeper BPL 2025 (#401, -2.2 points) with the consensus of 2 other boards (481.0). Last year's Sleeper line ran 80 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 1 starts and 90 minutes, 0 goals and 0 assists, 0 clean sheets, 2 goals against, 1 tackles and 2 CBI. Official FPL scored it at 2 points (2.0 per match). Sleeper's table turned the same counting stats into -2.2. 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: 0.02 xG, 0.16 xA, 0.18 xGI. The defensive events are the floor: 1 tackles, 2 clearances/blocks/interceptions, 0 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 FPL xGI at 330; the coldest is Sleeper BPL 2025 at 401.

Market: £4.5m, 3 boards on the file. Price is the FPL tax, not the rank. The Premier is who produced and who the boards still believe. ICT 4.9.

Instruction: he is on the 400, which is already a statement, and he is not a star. Stash in Sleeper if the minutes are real. Do not let a Pitch screenshot make you start him over a Premier top-80. FPL flag: unavailable; Has joined Bristol City on loan for the rest of the season. Nearby on The Premier: Igor Julio, Mamadou Sarr, Julio Soler Barreto. Versus The Pitch (Sleeper-only #401), the hybrid moves him down to #403. That move is the third list doing its job.

Age 20 is the other half of a hybrid. The 2025/26 counting line is one season. The Athletic-style youth lean on this board exists specifically so a Crystal Palace kid does not get stuck behind a 32-year-old who had a nice bonus year. Sleeper still has to see the minutes. 1 starts is the beginning of a case, not the end of one.

Full-backs and centre-backs separate on this board by attacking events. 0 goals and 0 assists are how a defender outruns his GA column. Without those, you are betting 0 clean sheets and the CBI stream (2) against 2 goals against at −2 a piece. Crystal Palace's 2026/27 defensive shape is therefore half of this player's rank. The other half already happened, across 1 starts.

How to use the file: The Pitch is the Sleeper-only 400 (he is #401 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.