Cuellar at Villa & the Block Defence.

Aston Villa are in a great run of defensive form at the moment, having kept 5 clean sheets in the last 6 games. One of the main beneficiaries of this has been Cuellar, who has played practically every minute of every game. He also popped up with a header goal to help Villa draw with Manchester United this week. While he hasn't been bringing home assists and goals this season, he has is good value at £5.8 million and looks likely to get at least a few more clean sheets before the season is out.

However this is a bandwagon that is fast gaining momentum, and this gameweek has seen over 10,000 managers transfer Cuellar into their squad. His price is sure to rise in the very near future, but expect it to settle very quickly, as although Aston Villa face lowly Burnley at home - a very favourable fixture - after that they miss the following gameweek 28, and will have a bye in gameweek 29 if they progress in the FA Cup being played this Saturday, which is looking likely. Or at least as likely as any cup tie can... which is to say, anything might happen.

If Villa qualify for the next round, two byes in a row will alarming to many of Cuellar's new owners, and his price may slip as people transfer him out rather than have £5.8million sitting on the bench for two weeks. It could be a wise move to consider Cuellar for gameweek 30 onwards.

Other than Chelsea, Everton and Manchester City, Villa's draw for the rest of the season is against teams currently in the bottom half of the league. Amongst this is a yet-to-be-scheduled match against Hull, which means one of these weeks will be a double gameweek.

From this point of view, Aston Villa have about as favourable a run of fixtures from gameweek 30 until the end of the season as you can get. This presents the opportunity taking two (or more) Villa defenders to form a block defence. Dunne and Cuellar are surely the men for this task. This is somewhat of a risk as if Villa slip up then you can have a low points return. However, with those 5 clean sheets in their last 6 games, if you had a Villa block defence of two or even three players in the last few weeks, you would have done particularly well. If you need to catch up ground on your mini-league, this is definately a tactic that may pay rewarding dividends.

A Villa block defence may be an excellent choice given their current form and future fixtures, but be wary of jumping on the Cuellar bandwagon too soon, as there is the possibility Aston Villa may not play until Gameweek 30. But from that point on, two or even three Villa defenders may make a good investment until the end of the season.