Everton 23/24 Fantasy Flashback
- RobbieP (@ateamofcarras)
- Jul 14, 2024
- 7 min read
Before we look ahead to this season's prospects, let's first digest Everton'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, Everton's Fantasy Flashback will highlight a breakout player and a fantasy flop, analyze the impact of any injuries suffered by Everton's players, and review the team's performance as a whole. Then, be sure to check out the Everton 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!
Everton 23/24 Fantasy Flashback
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23/24 Everton Player Performance
Let's review how Everton's 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.
The star of the show for Everton was James Tarkowski, reunited with Sean Dyche and a with an excellent centre back partner next to him in Jarrad Branthwaite (more on him later), he returned to the excellent ghosting form that we remember from his Burnley days. He ranked 1st for aerials and blocked shots and 4th for interceptions, helping him to a very healthy 10.8 gPPS. Starting every match and ranking 24th overall for FPts was quite the bonus for managers who drafted him in the 5/6th round.
Vitalii Mykolenko had an excellent start to the season, playing in a very advanced role, more like a wing back at times getting into dangerous positions in the opposition box. A couple of goals and an assist in that early period boosted his numbers nicely putting him on 10.4 PPS up to GW16. However, he dropped off in the second half of the season as Everton struggled, having fewer attacking opportunities and clean sheets. Despite this, his ghost point output stayed consistent throughout at a very reasonable 7.3 gPPS, showing that when Everton are in good form, Myko can be a very useful Fantrax asset, especially given how bad defenders were last season.
Abdoulaye Doucoure was one of the big success stories in the first half of the season, playing as the most advanced central midfielder. He caused absolute havoc to opposition defences, scoring 6 goals and providing 2 assists and averaging 10.9 PPS before his untimely injury in GW17. Sadly, he wasn't the same player after his return and was not even worth rostering. We'll go into fellow midfielder Dwight McNeil in more detail later, but it was an underwhelming season for him after a serious pre-season injury.
James Garner was a peripheral figure in his first season at Everton in 22/23 with just 7 starts, but he finally broke through into the first team registering 34 starts. 7.7 PPS overall didn't exactly set the world alight, but that fails to acknowledge how reliable he was in the middle part of the season, from the end of September through to the start of March he put up a very solid 9.1 PPS in 22 starts, a MID 3/4 free agent gem addition for any squad.
Dominic Calvert-Lewin surprisingly stayed fit all season and did just enough to keep new signing Beto out of the team. 7 goals and 3 assists wasn't exactly inspiring but this season was more about ensuring he could stay healthy and work his way back into form. It didn't look too promising through most of the season, but there were signs in the last few gameweeks that things had started to click again, scoring 4 goals in 7 games and a very healthy 13 points per game! His 12.9 xG accrued over the course of the season (compared to 7G) suggest that with a bit more luck (or skill) on the finishing front, it could have perhaps been quite a useful fantasy season.
23/24 Breakout Player
Jarrad Branthwaite
Position: Defender
23/24 Points: 280.25 (10th best DEF)
23/24 Points Per Start: 8.0 (35 starts)
Jarrod Branthwaite didn't start the first two games of the season, but the young centre back certainly nailed his spot in the XI after that, looking calm and composed. He performed so well that he was even in contention to make the England squad for Euro 2024 and is now a serious transfer target for Manchester United. Branthwaite reached 8 PPS by having an excellent floor of ghost points from defensive stat categories. While he didn't have the same volume as Tarkowski, he was still right up there, ranking 12th for aerials, 8th for clearances, 7th for interceptions, and 6th for blocked shots. He offered a big threat at the other end of the pitch from set pieces too, scoring 3 goals and even provided an assist. If Everton can keep him, Branthwaite should offer great value next season, centre backs playing for Dyche are just a gold mine for defensive actions!
23/24 Fantasy Flop
Dwight McNeil
Position: Midfielder
23/24 Points: 351 (19th best MID)
23/24 Points Per Start: 10.7 (33 starts)
This was a tough category to pick for Everton, new signings Beto, Danjuma and Harrison underwhelmed but there wasn't much expectation of them doing well ahead of the season. Realistically, the only player that failed to live up to expectations was Dwight McNeil, mostly due to his heroics in the second half of the 22/23 season where he averaged 14.9 PPS after Sean Dyche took over. He can hardly be called a flop given his ADP of 33 nearly perfectly matched his overall FPts rank of 32, but there was a feeling that he could really kick on and it just didn't transpire. His ADP was actually lower than it would have been after he suffered an ankle injury in pre-season. In drafts that started before the news came through he was being taken as high as the start of round 3! McNeil eventually missed the first 4 games of the season, which didn't help his momentum and resulted in a slow start with just 8.5 PPS up to GW13. His form did pick though, as he averaged 11.5 PPS after that. At Burnley we knew McNeil as a ghost point magnet, dribbling and crossing to his heart's content, but with very little in the way of attacking returns. At Everton he hasn't seemed to have the same swashbuckling style, most noticeably with a fall-off in dribbles; he completed just 30, which is a third of what he managed in 21/22, but he also declined in defensive actions. His ghost point output was still reasonable at 8.2 gPPS, mostly down to an increase in key passes given his role on set pieces. Offering that threat through crosses got him 6 assists (from 8.8 xA) and if it wasn't for some profligate finishing he could have had even more. So an underwhelming season but some signs of promise, so definitely one to keep an eye on in drafts as he could very well slip further than he should.
Injury Impact
The big shocker here is I'm not talking about Dominic Calvert-Lewin at length, as the only games he missed through injury were from a broken cheekbone at the start of the season. In fact, Everton did extremely well in this department, with their key players staying fit for most of the season. Seamus Coleman did miss the first half of the season through a knee injury, but Nathan Patterson, Ashley Young and Ben Godrfey ably took over his role at right back, as Coleman was not offered too many chances even when he did return. A hamstring injury halfway through the season derailed Abdoulaye Doucoure excellent form, Dyche chose to fill the void by using a variety of players such as Idrissa Gueye and Andre Gomes as the extra man in midfield.
Everton's Overall Team Performance
Everton's season was epitomised by a real struggle to score goals, they scored just 40, which ranked 19th in the league sandwiched between the woeful Sheffield United and Burnley. Given Everton generated 54 xG this points to a lack of quality in finishing chances and it's no wonder that a third of Everton's goals came from set-pieces. Fortunately, Dyche hadn't lost his touch at keeping a tight ship, Everton conceded just 51 goals (4th best in the league) and kept 13 clean sheets (joint 2nd best in the league), which gave them the platform to get results. The season began with Everton putting in a lot of excellent performances, but not getting the results they deserved, through poor finishing and conceding sloppy goals, but things started to come good with a string of good results getting them into a safer position. But then the shadow of the punishments for breaching profit and sustainability rules (PSR) loomed large during the second half of Everton's season. An initial 10-point deduction (eventually reduced to 6) and an additional 2-point deduction towards the end of the season was a huge blow to their survival chances. Despite this, Dyche's men still managed to claw their way back out of the relegation zone to finish with 40 points, comfortably ahead of 18th placed Luton on 26 points. Without the deductions Everton would have finished in 12th place, level on points with Bournemouth and Brighton and just one point behind Crystal Palace. Staying up given the circumstances and ending the season with a first home derby win against Liverpool in 14 years meant the season ended on a high and a much brighter outlook going into next season. There were a lot of things to like about Everton, particularly in defence for Fantrax managers, but the attacking players will need to start taking their chances if Everton are to significantly improve in 24/25.
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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