Here are our defender picks for week 18.

If you want to see more, keep reading after the break. But please join the discussion at r/FantasyMLS, that’s where a lot of planning is made and last second decisions finalized. If you have questions, please stop by!

After a couple of days of looking at the fixtures and stats, we’ve come to one conclusion when it comes to defenders; there are just a lot of mediocre matchups this week. Few teams are giving up an average of less than one goal per home game, so we actually ended up with a nice mix of home and away options.

Defenders

Even with their rough run of form, Sporting Kansas City still has the best overall record when it comes to goals conceded at home (of this weeks home teams of course). SKC has conceded 7 goals in 8 homes games. So if you have a SKC player this week, play him Aurélien Collin is the obvious choice (and also the most owned) but you can also roll with Matt Besler (pending Gold Cup roster).

There are three other teams that have conceded an average of 1 goal per home game. The first is Philadelphia, which has won their last 3 home games! This is nice if you are working on a budget because you can get Jeff Park or Sheanon Williams for $4.7m. Parke is the more defensive of the two but Sheanon has bagged a goal and an assist recently. It’s up to you to decide which you value more for their home game against Dallas.

The second team is Montreal. They had a rough start to the double game week, but ended with a clean sheet. Also, Montreal has also not lost a home game. Matteo Ferrari is once again our top pick form their backline (also under $5.0m). The added advantage to getting a Montreal player now is getting ready for the excellent run of games that they are getting ready to have.

New York is the third team that has an average of conceding 1 goal per home game. Jamison Olave is the obvious pick and will help the NY back line now that he is back from his red card, but they looked a little rough last week. If Cahill returns, that will be a big boost too. Houston looks to be without Brad Davis (due to injury) so this game could go either way.

As for the away teams, we’re finally at the best looking game of the week, Chivas vs New England, well, good looking for New England. Jose Goncalves is the obvious pick from New England, and is already highly owned. If you have him, play him, but New England has a bye next week, so only bring him in if you’re willing to bench him next week and that’s not something we like to do with a player who costs 6.4m.

Our differential pick this week also comes from an away team, Real Salt Lake. RSL does not have a fantastic away record, but Toronto has a worse home record. RSL also has the best form in the league and that could be enough to grab a second away win in a row for them. Nat Borchers is our pick here. He’s $5.3m and owned by 2.5% of managers. He also has some great defensive bonus point numbers.

Final thoughts

• Eah week overall

• DC might have a change this week as VAN are poor on the road

That’s all I got. I’d love to hear your feedback, plans, and insights.

These are our picks, if you think there should be more names on this list, please leave a comment or come to r/FantasyMLS and comment on the post. You can also leave a message on our Facebook page or you can find us on Twitter @FantasyMLSTips. Keep checking back for more updates through the week for other positions. Good Luck!