Arsenal 23/24 Fantasy Flashback

Ryan Barnes
Jul 14, 2024
6 min read

Before we look ahead to this season's prospects, let's first digest Arsenal's takeaways from the previous season in our 23/24 Fantasy Flashback series. In this year's 24/25 Draft Kit, we are featuring both a Fantasy Flashback and a Fantasy Forecast for every single Premier League team. The flashbacks will be available on Draft Kit launch day, while the forecasts will drop closer to draft day. Check the 24/25 Draft Kit main page often, as it's updated constantly!

In addition to reviewing top Draft PL fantasy contributors, Arsenal's Fantasy Flashback will highlight a breakout player and a fantasy flop, analyze the impact of any injuries suffered by Arsenal players, and review the team's performance as a whole. Then, be sure to check out the Arsenal 24/25 Fantasy Forecast to find out whether last season was a fluke or if we predict more of the same.

Check out our 24/25 Draft Kit for all the pre-season information you could ever need: Draft Rankings, Team Previews, Mock Drafts, Strategy, Draft 101. We've got it all!

Arsenal 23/24 Fantasy Flashback

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23/24 Player Performance

Injury Impact

Overall Team Performance

23/24 Arsenal Player Performance

Let's review how Arsenal players fared in 23/24, with an emphasis on their Draft Premier League fantasy assets. We'll also discuss any pertinent info regarding rotation, managerial tactics, and injuries below. What can we learn from their performance in the last campaign?

Note: The following table is interactive. Desktop users can apply the Filter, Group, and Sort buttons to arrange the data to their preferences. Mobile users can tap on a player card to view all data points. The table can be reset to its default state by refreshing the page.

Coming into the 23/24 draft, the general consensus was that Bukayo Saka, Martin Odegaard, Gabriel Jesus, and Gabriel Martinelli would be the first off the board, likely in that order. Saka and Odegaard, ever so reliable, did not disappoint. Saka ended up the top fantasy scorer and Odegaard defied any expectations of a let off in production by finishing tenth (right around his ADP). Jesus and Martinelli, on the other hand, had moments but underwhelmed due to a number of factors. The defenders, led by Ben White and Gabriel Magahlaes and buttressed by the set piece goals and clean sheets, were reliable, especially in a down season for the position. White and Magahlaes finished 2nd and 8th, respectively, in total points for defenders. The rotation at LB meant that Oleksandr Zinchenko, Takehiro Tomiyasu, and cult favorite, Jakub Kiwior, all ended up being high end streamers when cracking the starting xi. The lack of ghost point capability really hampered William Saliba and David Raya despite all this.

Meanwhile, three of the biggest question marks last summer - Kai Havertz, Declan Rice, and Leandro Trossard - arguably ended up providing the most value. Granted, one had to be patient, as they all had slow starts. Kai's time in midfield was mediocre at best, Rice was putting up decent CDM numbers before taking over that LCM role vacated by Kai's transition, and Trossard was relegated to the bench by Martinelli. But Kai's switch to main striker, Rice's forays forward, and Trossard's late season purple patch catapulted all of them into double digit Points Per Start (PPS). The jury is still out as to who be the value picks heading into the 24/25 draft.

23/24 Breakout Player

Kai Havertz

Position: Forward

23/24 Points: 394 (7th best FWD)

23/24 Points Per Start: 12.3 (30 starts)

As Winston Churchill once said of the Soviet Union, Kai Havertz is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma. Is he a lone striker, a central midfielder, a number 10? As a result of this uncertainty, it was a tale of two halves of the season for Kai. Playing in midfield at the beginning of the season, he struggled. In the first half of the season, he only mustered 6.8 PPS from 12 starts. When he made the shift to striker, he really turned it around, delivering 15.8 PPS in the second half of the campaign. When just looking at this period, he cracks the top 5 in total scoring. He is very likely to continue in this role in 24/25 and will look to keep this up.

Honorable Mention goes to Declan Rice, who really cracked on when slotted into the more attacking 6 role and granted left sided corner kicks. He finished with an impressive 10.4 PPS, really emerging in the latter stages, scoring 5 goals and providing 6 assists on the way to 13.7 PPS in the second half of the season.

23/24 Fantasy Flop

Gabriel Martinelli

Position: Midfielder

23/24 Points: 306 (29th best MID)

23/24 Points Per Start: 10.0 (24 starts)

Much was expected of young Gabriel Martinelli in 23/24. Coming off a breakout season in which he lodged 20 Goals/Assists (G/A) and started 34 games, he was primed to continue terrorizing opposition defenders on the Arsenal left wing. This led to the talented winger being largely taken in the early to mid 2nd round of 23/24 drafts. But it just didn't happen for him. Despite maintaining a solid 10 PPS, he ended up with just half of his G/A from last season (10) and lost his corner-taking duties to Declan Rice and his starting spot to Leandro Trossard. In his defense, the left side of the Arsenal set-up was turbulent all season - with Kai in and out at LCM and no steady LB, there was no fluidity. There is hope yet that he can shake this off and deliver an excellent 24/25 campaign.

Honorable Mention here to Gabriel Jesus. Given ADP versus output, there is a compelling argument that Jesus is a much bigger flop than Martinelli. But it's harder to paint someone as a flop because of injuries. As noted below, Jesus still hasn't fully rehabbed his knee. And while managers were thankful for his monster against Luton Town, they all regretted drafting him so early. He's another that could see a resurgence in 24/25.

Injury Impact

It didn't take long for a key player to hit the injury table, with new defender Jurrien Timber succumbing to an ACL injury in the pre-season Community Shield match that kept him out for almost the entire campaign. It will be interesting to see how he responds to the injury and how he fits into Arteta's plans come August. Arsenal's studs remained relatively healthy - other than the recent usual suspects, Gabriel Jesus, Thomas Partey, and Takehiro Tomiyasu. The Brazilian FWD just hasn't looked the same since his injury with Brazil in the World Cup in November 2022. He reaggravated the knee injury in preseason and missed the first few matches, and it hampered him all season. He has since had an operation to "clean" his knee of fluid and will look to get back to his best. Partey, meanwhile, just can't seem to stay fit, with various knocks limiting him to just 9 starts this season. Tomiyasu, albeit not to the same extent, has also fallen victim to constant fitness issues. When healthy, he's a top defender that Arteta trusts. But he'll need to be fit enough to start more than ten games in 24/25.

Arsenal's Overall Team Performance

The Gunners went into this past season seeking to answer the Kai conundrum - where do we deploy Havertz? Much of the rest of the starting xi and the general thrust of the team hinged on how this would play itself out. For the first few months, Arteta experimented with him in Xhaka's vacated LCM role, with Gabriel Jesus leading the line. The team often struggled for fluidity and goals during this stretch.

The team returned from the holiday break in Dubai like a pack of wild dogs, burying all comers in its wake. During a 7 game stretch from late January to early March, Arsenal won all these games by a staggering margin of 31-3. They were cooking, with the big difference being Kai Havertz playing as the lone striker. And despite a costly wobble v Aston Villa at home, they pushed the title race until the very last day. If they had played like this all season, the title surely would have returned to North London. Alas, the Gunners fell short by two solitary points to Manchester City, who won their 4th straight EPL.

All in all, Arsenal had an excellent run in 23/24 and improved in almost every aspect. They ended the campaign with the stodgiest defense (only 29 goals conceded; 5 fewer than the next best & 14 less than they gave up in 22/23) and the second most potent attack (with 91 goals scored & an EPL record 16 of them coming from corners). The scary thing is that this team can get better. Hope springs eternal going into the 24/25 campaign.