The End-of-Season Round Table
With the Champions League final firmly in the rear-view, the European football season is over (sorry Nations League). We look back on some of our favourite/least-favourite parts of the 22/23 season.
With the books now closed on the 2022/23 season, we’ve dragged the whole team back together one last time to dissect the year that was. We’ve had World Cups, shock title challenges, single season records broken for goals and managerial changes and a real challenge to the established order of Premier League teams. We’ve also had takes. Many of them. So lets talk about them.
Here we go.
How are we all doing?
Gordon: Excited to be back writing regularly alongside the three of you. About to welcome a second child to the household, so looking forward to the second draft season in three years where I’m sleep deprived when hitting that draft button. Wild takes incoming.
Chris: Very busy! Trying to finish my school work on top of wrangling the newest version of the Draft Ranker and putting together a brand new content plan for Overthinking Football 2.0 has got me working overtime. But that being said, could not be more excited for what we’re cooking up!
Andrew: Doing well! After a busy start to the year that included getting married, lots of travel, and adopting a puppy (that’s just as hard as a human child, right Gordon?), the summer break came at a great time. Ready to get back at it though!
Will: Things are good! I finished up grad school in March and have moved from Philadelphia to Salt Lake City to start a new job. So I’m working on this round table between unpacking and watching onboarding training videos.
What were your general feelings on the season?
Gordon: As the resident Chelsea fan, I can’t decide if I’m glad it’s over, or wanting to enjoy a season where we never really had the threat of relegation, in case the next one is worse. But in more general terms, I thought this season was a real test of endurance in Fantrax terms and I hope that’s our last experiment with a Winter World Cup!
Chris: No. More. Weird. Seasons. All I’m asking for is a season with minimal double game weeks and not having a 2 month break in the middle of the season. Is that too much to ask?
Andrew: Mixed emotions. As a United fan, it was great to support a team that I actually enjoyed watching this year—it’s been awhile! Seeing the rise of Brighton and the success of a few other non-state backed teams was also a bright spot. As a fantasy manager, on the other hand, this season was a bit of a slog. I echo Chris’s plea for a (relatively) normal schedule moving forward.
Will: Emotionally draining. Not only was the season extra long with the World Cup break, but as a Liverpool fan it was an emotional rollercoaster. It is about all I can take to have all in one season: getting crushed by United, crushing United, the tale of two Trents, and to miss out on the top four despite a far too late valiant push. I am ready for a rest . . . and some healthy central midfielders under the age of 30.
What was your favourite storyline this season?
Gordon: It’s a Brighton 50/50 between Superstar Solly March and seeing the emergence of Evan Ferguson in a team that’s needed a striker for about as long as they’ve been in the league (sorry Glenn Murray and Danny Welbeck).
Chris: Everything coming together for Arsenal and their exceptionally fun, young forward-line. Watching Martinelli and Saka cook, Odegaard masterfully pull the strings, and Gabriel Jesus link with the crew was an absolute joy. While the season didn’t end with a title, it was one to be massively proud of with the future exceptionally bright.
Andrew: One of my entries in our Superlatives article tips this off, but Marcus Rashford’s resurgence was a true joy to witness. Sports are not always the best at rewarding good people, but in Marcus’s case, his success this season really couldn’t have happened to a better person. He has gotten a lot of unwarranted stick from Premier League fans—and United supporters in particular—across the past few seasons, and it was great to see everything fall his way post-World Cup.
Will: The Fulham Aleksandar Mitrovic and Tim Ream fueled redemption arch was a nice uplifting storyline in a season with a lot of downers. I definitely cannot claim to have seen their stellar season coming. However, it was nice to see Mitrovic and Ream vindicate themselves with such a great season after being derided by most pundits for their efforts in the 20/21 relegation season.
What take are you happiest with from the 2022/23 season?
Gordon: 4/5 breakout picks comfortably outperforming their ADP from my pre-season article had me very happy, given how much I go on about age curves. Still stings that it was Ait-Nouri that let me down from the full set, though!
Chris: Keeping faith in some sputtering stars. The season is long and everyone has some rough stretches where the variance just doesn’t work out in their favor, but guys like Phil Foden and Trent Alexander-Arnold are proven commodities. They were always bound to come good and never worth selling low. Hanging on and riding them to the end was my recipe for a successful season.
Oh but mainly immediately picking up McNeil in every league immediately upon Sean Dyche’s arrival at Goodison. Long live Dwight McNeil, fantasy legend.
Long live Sean Dyche’s Burnle…Everton star Dwight McNeil Andrew: Well, as a co-manager with Chris, I’d probably go with his answer, but that wouldn’t be any fun. Instead I’ll highlight my pre-season faith in Palace’s young midfield duo, who both put in amazing fantasy shifts this season. Michael Olise finished 11th overall in Wins Above Replacement (WAR), and 23rd overall in xFpts (ahead of Odegaard!). Eberechi Eze, despite a Viera-fueled mid-season blip, still ended up at 17th overall in WAR and had an impressive 10.99 xFpts/start. These guys are fun to watch, and their games suit Fantrax’s scoring system perfectly. Not too shabby for my 6th and 7th round picks!
Will: Betting on Newcastle players being under valued. I scooped up a lot of Newcastle players in the draft and grabbed a few more off the waiver wire in the beginning of the season, and that paid dividends. I think a lot of people were put off by Newcastle’s truly terrible start to the 21/22 season, but they really turned things around when they brought in Eddie Howe and nearly infinite oil money with the change in ownership. Never underestimate the value of nearly infinite money.
And… which take would you like back?
Gordon: I wrote a whole article about my take that you shouldn’t use a first rounder on Haaland…
Chris: I blame Chelsea being a dumpster fire as a whole rather than Mason Mount being responsible himself, but I held faith and was too high on him for far too long. When Chelsea isn’t clicking, Mason Mount isn’t either. I do think he’s still an excellent player and great fantasy asset, but the situation has to be right. If either Chelsea improves or he gets a role in a location (United maybe?), he might end up a massively underrated player. He wasn’t terrible (94th in WAR; 8.3 xFpts), but for a guy I rated in the second round, it just wasn’t enough.
Not the season Mason or Chris were hoping for Andrew: Man, I really should have gone before Chris. While my second round pick on Mount probably hurts the most in retrospect, my belief that Pedro Neto (315th in WAR; 7.22 xfpts/start) would bounce back to something close to his pre-injury form and that Rayan Ait-Nouri (250th in WAR; 6.51 xFpts/start) was going to be this season’s defender breakout probably aged the worst. Wolves were truly a fantasy blackhole this season, and I can’t say I see that changing in the coming campaign.
Will: I knew the West Ham offense was going to come good eventually. I just didn’t expect it to be exclusively in the Europa Conference League. For most of the season, West Ham was flirting with relegation and WAY underperforming their xG. I kept telling myself, “they’ll turn it around and start putting up some performances eventually.” However, I was deluding myself to think that the West Ham attack could approach the heights of the last two season after a half season of underperformance. I should have reset my expectation. They got it together in time to be well outside of relegation, but it wasn’t enough to save my fantasy season.
What are you most interested in over this Summer?
Gordon: Honestly, probably how big Newcastle go in the transfer market (but that’s boring). So instead probably where the truly big domino transfers (Rice, Caicedo etc.) end up when the dust settles. Will it be Arsenal? Will it be Chelsea? Will it be Bayern? All I know if Fabrizio is going to be racking up the clicks over the next few weeks!
Follow the money and see where it leads for Declan? Chris: How will the underperforming teams bounce back? Specifically looking at you, Chelsea (sorry, Gordon) and Liverpool (sorry, Will). Midfield was obviously a major problem for Liverpool, so you could conceivably see them buy their way out of these problems, with Alexis Mac Allister being a great opening move. But what about Chelsea? Are they just going to keep buying? How Pochettino approaches this overly bloated squad will be great for the neutrals.
Andrew: While United’s ongoing search for a striker will probably draw much of my personal attention, seeing how Poch is able to address Chelsea’s circus is most interesting to me. Does Poch still have it? Will Boehly burn even more money? Can all of Chelsea’s first-team players actually fit in the same dressing room come August 1st? There are a lot of unanswered questions coming out of West London, and for the sake of my entertainment, I hope the answers to the above are no, yes, and absolutely not (thanks for joining the OF team, Gordon!).
Will: Nothing like some good schadenfreude to help you get past a difficult end to a season. So I will taking particular interest in the moves Everton will be making this summer. Avoiding relegation was massive for their financial situation, but it appears they aren’t out of the woods yet. They are going to need to make some clever moves (which has not been their recent M.O.) to put together a functional team with their departures and their lack of spending money. I will say that Dyche might be the ideal manager to help them put together a squad on a budget.
Number one takeaway from 22/23
Gordon: I still believe that the premium defender bounce-back is coming. This was a really odd year for defender scoring. I strongly expect some of our old favourites to bounce back into the mix as value players in the top 30 next season (certainly at least the Liverpool and Chelsea full back group should be back to strength).
Chris: Save your FAAB! With two years under my belt using the FAAB system I’m now far less inclined to drop major FAAB on individual players at this point, and would rather get first waiver for the entire back-half of the season for streaming when everyone else has frittered theirs away on the likes of Matheus Cunha (guilty!) or Enzo Fernandez (not guilty!). New transfers are rarely smash hits, whereas streamers and bad drops are far more predictable.
Andrew: Injuries are bad. While many of our Fantrax favorites this season—TAA, Foden, etc.—went through dry spells, they rewarded managers who wisely stuck with them based on a demonstrated history of performance. On the other hand, there were a few players who found themselves on the sidelines through fitness concerns with whom I really should have cut the cord sooner. From the fantasy manager’s perspective, injuries are a bit of a black box, as we can only go off the information provided to us by actual managers, clubs, and the players themselves. But if you own players who have suffered something more than a knock, it’s worth taking a second and evaluating whether it’s actually worth holding onto them during their time out. Injury timelines can be pushed back, difficult fixture schedules may await upon return, and performance may lag after a long layoff. I don’t want to suggest that you should trade or drop everyone who finds themselves on the sidelines for an extended period, but I am saying you should think about it.
Will: Harry Kane is an unstoppable force of nature when it comes to scoring goals. He just keeps putting them away even on a sputtering at best Spurs team this year. If he makes the rumored move to Manchester United this summer, I will no longer be able to even speak his name. But I will try to draft him, because I think he will be scoring buckets of Fpts with a functional ball progression system behind him.
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