Chelsea 23/24 Fantasy Flashback
- Bantah Boyz
- Jul 14, 2024
- 7 min read
Updated: Jul 20, 2024
Before we look ahead to this season's prospects, let's first digest Chelsea'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, Chelsea's Fantasy Flashback will highlight a breakout player and a fantasy flop, analyze the impact of any injuries suffered by Chelsea players, and review the team's performance as a whole. Then, be sure to check out the Chelsea 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!
Chelsea 23/24 Fantasy Flashback
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23/24 Chelsea Player Performance
Let's review how Chelsea 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.
After a tumultuous time during the 22/23 campaign, expectations around a bounce-back season for Chelsea and their assets for the 23/24 season were mixed amongst Fantrax managers. Rightly so, especially in a manager's debut season for the club. Pochettino and his team displayed promising performances, during the preseason fixtures, resulting in some popular assets during the 23/24 draft such as Christopher Nkunku (ADP 19) and Ben Chilwell (ADP 47). However, the Argentine's tactical plans had to be ripped up and restarted for the 23/24 season, as the former sustained a season-long injury and was a main component of Chelsea's attack. Even though Pochettino had to tinker his way through the first half of the season, there was one massive discovery during his inconsistent results: Cole Palmer.
Palmer might have one of the most cringe celebrations to-date, but the young English midfielder was ice-cold in front of net, having scored 22 goals along with 13 fantasy assists in only 29 starts. In fact, Palmer was the only Chelsea asset that ended up being a top 10 scoring asset. Unfortunately, the top 3 drafted Chelsea assets during the 23/24 season massively underperformed their assumed draft output but it was not very surprising given the multiple injuries that Chelsea sustained, as well as Pochettino constantly tinkering to find his best system.
Therefore, the 23/24 season was one of unexpected gems and lucky grabs when it came to rostering any Chelsea player. Another unpredictable prime example was Conor Gallagher (ADP 134 and Overall Rank 27). Even Nicolas Jackson, who was the 3rd highest drafted Chelsea forward, finished the season in the top 50 overall players list for the 23/24 season (ADP 65 and Overall Rank 29). Other assets who have a notable points per start (PPS) such as Noni Madueke (10.9) and Malo Gusto (8.5), further emphasize the unpredictable draft day value most managers would have gotten from Chelsea assets as they are two of the better scoring Chelsea assets with a PPS of greater than 8 but with less than 20 starts, due to the playing opportunities arising from unprecedented injuries and varying tactics during the Blues 23/24 season.
23/24 Breakout Player
Cole Palmer
Position: Midfielder
23/24 Points: 580.5 (2nd best MID)
23/24 Points Per Start: 19.5 (29 starts)
No one could have predicted a Chelsea player with an ADP of 222 in the "Big 3" leagues and mostly undrafted in majority of other leagues (FT ADP 300) to become the 2nd highest scoring asset by the end of the 23/24 season. Therefore managers who were quick to pull the trigger in rostering Cole Palmer from the waiver wire or free agency pool, would have been handsomely rewarded for the rest of their season, as the young English midfielder would have easily helped any manager win most of their matchups during their season.
Palmer became the penalty taker for Chelsea and had a say on most of the set pieces for the club. These avenues to points fueled his 10.1 ghost points per start (gPPS), which unsurprisingly resulted in him having the 2nd highest points per start (PPS) of all players in the league at an insane 19.5 PPS. Palmer's numbers are quite staggering given the fact that he started the fewest games (29) amongst the top 6 scoring assets in the game, only tied with Haaland.
In fact, if you only consider the fantasy points scored since Palmer's 1st start, the Chelsea midfielder scored the most points of all players (569.5), easily ahead of 2nd place Bukayo Saka by over 100 points. So there's a very good chance that he remains an elite asset in the upcoming 24/25 season and is an easy first round draft pick in any league.
23/24 Fantasy Flop
Reece James
Position: Defender
23/24 Points: 42.75 (128th best DEF)
23/24 Points Per Start: 4.9 (5 starts)
Oh Risky Reece. Although James had the 2nd highest ProjFPts (253) and the highest ProjPPS (11.1) of all Chelsea assets for the 23/24 season, we DID warn managers of James as a player to avoid in our 23/24 Draft Kit due to his history with injuries. Alas, James had a massive drop-off in his production from being the 51st best DEF (22/23 season) to being outside the top 100 defenders in the 23/24 season.
Despite James being well known as a DEF-1 in the draftosphere and also as one of the best Chelsea assets to roster, we all knew the possibility of Reece getting injured again during the 23/24 season. Even though James managed to rewrite his record for most days missed (205), it was mainly due to surgery for a hamstring issue, one of his most prevalent problems in his career thus far. Assuming the surgery was a success, there is a slight chance that the English defender could finally be a reliable asset again, return to his glory days and return big for risk-averse managers - after the first three gameweeks of course.
Injury Impact
Chelsea was no stranger to injuries during the 23/24 Premier League season as they ended the campaign with the 2nd most time-loss (43), 3rd most days lost (1745) and the 5th most games missed (214). As a matter of fact, the top 3 Chelsea assets in terms of average draft position, Christopher Nkunku (19), Reece James (33) and Ben Chilwell (40), only had 16 starts amongst them as they were plagued with season long injuries. However, despite being a regular butt-of-the-joke with respect to the ludicrous number of signings Chelsea made during their transfer windows, their deep squad had hidden gems that stepped up over the course of the season.
Some key replacements were Malo Gusto for Reece James, Marc Cucurella for Levi Colwill and Ben Chilwell as well as a mixture of Noni Madueke, Mykhailo Mudryk and Raheem Sterling for Christopher Nkunku. Even Chelsea's first-choice goalkeeper Robert Sanchez fell to injury, which allowed the likes of Djordje Petrovic to start more than half their games. Interestingly enough, almost all of the replacement assets, except Cucurella, had better PPS ratings than their assumed mainstay counterparts, such as Gusto (8.5) vs James (4.9). This basically meant that most of the prime Chelsea assets were mainly attained during a cheeky waiver wire or as a quick-trigger-free-agency pick up.
Chelsea's Overall Team Performance
In preparation of the 23/24 campaign, Chelsea hired Mauricio Pochettino along with a sprinkling of new and promising young talents such as Christopher Nkunku, Nicolas Jackson and most notably Cole Palmer. However, Chelsea had a very mixed season of results. Pochettino struggled to find any consistency during the first half his season, especially in the Premier League, with 10 losses in their first 23 games, relinquishing any sliver of hope of a unlikely title challenge. That being said, the Blues still managed to reach the final of the EFL cup, ending as runners-up to Liverpool, as well as the semi-finals of the FA Cup, where they ultimately fell to the hands of the 23/24 Premier League champions, Manchester City.
Despite having the 2nd most time-loss due to injuries to popular draft players such as Reece James and Ben Chilwell, Chelsea made a massive improvement in their league form during the second half of their season, with only 1 loss in their final 15 games. Eventually, Pochettino led the club to a 6th place finish, securing a swift return to European football for the 24/25 season. Actually, if you consider the final 12 games of the season as a league table, Chelsea would be sitting 3rd overall with the 2nd most goals scored (33), only behind the likes of Manchester City and Arsenal. This in-form team, mainly comprised of a 433-false-9 system with Cole Palmer being the main beneficiary. The young lion ended the season with 35 goal contributions in 34 games - which is just over a goal or assist per game - no surprise for the 2nd highest scoring Fantrax asset for the 23/24 season.
However, in typical Chelsea manner, there was an inevitable manager change at the club and Pochetinno parted ways with the club by mutual consent at the end of the 23/24 season. This also paved the way for another Argentine coach to take the reins at the West London club - Enzo Maresca - the previous coach of the 23/24 EFL Championship’s Champions, Leicester City.
More 23/24 Fantasy Flashbacks: Arsenal | Aston Villa | Bournemouth | Brentford | Brighton | Chelsea | Crystal Palace | Everton | Fulham | Ipswich Town | Leicester City | Liverpool | Man City | Man United | Newcastle | Nottingham Forest | Southampton | Tottenham | West Ham | Wolves
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