Fantrax EPL: Race to the Most FPts - A 24/25 End of Season Review

We've finally come to the end of the season and what a season it has been! At long last Liverpool have a Premier League title that they can actually celebrate, but a lot of the meaningful drama has come outside of the Premier League with cup competitions won by Newcastle United, Crystal Palace, and even Spurs! In the league, the goal tally hasn't quite matched that in 23/24 (1,091 vs 1,246), as we have seen a less gung-ho approach by Premier League teams this season with plenty of either mixed possession based or low block set ups with fast counter attacks, personified by the surprising rise of Nottingham Forest. This combined with the new default scoring update has certainly made defenders more viable and streaming them more fruitful. In this review we will look back at the ups and downs of players fantasy performance through the season and try and make sense of it all!

Overview

Another season has come and gone in a flash, or a slog depending on your fortunes over the past ten months. At this point, most of you will likely be looking forward to taking a well-deserved break, and it will definitely be a break this time given we have no international football to look forward to, that is unless the new bloated version of the Club World Cup holds any interest to you. At any rate it will certainly feel like a long run up to draft season for 25/26!

As has become custom, I've tried to keep this season review as a light touch and let the animations do most of the talking. You can read as much as you want, but if not, you can kick back and watch the points race along. Spoiler alert, Mo Salah consistently monstered his way to being the outstanding MVP and Bryan Mbeumo surprisingly snuck ahead of Cole Palmer at the death after an abject 2nd half of the season for the latter.

In this review we will look at the race to the most fantasy points, the most fantasy points in the 2nd half of the season, the most ghost points and the highest total WAR, which rewards scores above waiver wire replacement level. WAR is the true test of a players value and how we rank players at the Draft Society! The charts below are interactive, so you can filter for any position by clicking on the key at the top. Each time you click on a position in the key it will add/remove that position from the graph, so you can remove all but one position to look at Defenders for example, or any combination that you like, such as Midfielders and Forwards together. You can also pause/start the race and drag it to whichever GW you fancy. If you are interested in looking at the charts that I created for last season, check that out here: Fantrax EPL: Race to the Most FPts - A 23/24 End of Season Review.

Race to the most Fantasy Points

It's worth noting that only points which were scored when a player starts a game are counted here, as we would never start a benched player, unless we've backed ourselves into a corner. So Declan Rice may feel hard done by, as his 31-minute cameo goal and assist for 22.75 points in GW17 against Crystal Palace won't be included! There will be some very valuable players, who have a high PPS but limited starts, who won't show up as well on a graph like this (for example Kevin De Bruyne, who missed a lot of time through injury/rotation). However, the top 25 for overall points will still likely be the elite players and if you've had any of these players on your roster, their consistency will have massively helped you to wins over the whole season. So lets get into it.

Total Fantasy Points

The headlines must be taken by Mo Salah, what an absolutely insane season the Egyptian King has had with 734.25 FPts, which is a Fantrax record to my knowledge. KDB's 710 FPts in 2019/20 from 32 starts is seemingly more impressive, but was certainly propped up by the overpowered key pass stat, of which KDB was king - he had 136 that season! Salah scored an impressive 29 goals, but was also a creative force for his teammates registering 18 assists and was only just behind Bruno Fernandes on 89 key passes. A truly legendary performance, despite how much he tailed off in the final few weeks of the season,once Liverpool had sealed the title.

As mentioned above, this season a new scoring update was introduced which means keepers and defenders are not punished for the first goals conceded. This has resulted in a rise from just 1 defender in the top 25 last season, to an impressive 7 this season, with fantasy stalwart Tarkowski managing to make both lists, despite a slow start and missing the last 5 GWs of the season. Munoz and Robinson (Jedi) have been revelations this season, marauding down their respective flanks and providing a huge dose of creativity for their teams. Collins has been an absolute steal for those who picked him up early in the season, he's had a very healthy 8.6 gPPS, while also chipping in with 2 goals and an absurd (for a centre back) 7 assists. Van Dijk has rolled back the years and returned to his aerial dominance, benefitting greatly from Liverpool's improved defence this year with 14 clean sheets. Forest defenders have been a huge source of fantasy success for mangers this season, but it's only Milenkovic that creeps into the top 25. His ghosts weren't amazing at 7.2 gPPS, but Forest's miserly defence and his aerial prowess in the opposition box which saw him score 5 goals boosted his score. It's sad to report on Alexander-Arnold missing out on the top 25, he was easily on course to be up there; registering as high as 9th overall in GW28, but injuries and reduced game time following the announcement of his move to Real Madrid after Liverpool sealed the title saw him just miss out.

Last season the midfielders really dominated the show with a total of 16 in the top 25, but the midfield pool has been pretty stark in contrast this season with just 8. This likely could have been a lot higher were it not for injuries to the likes of Saka, McNeil, Amad, Kluivert and Mitoma. As expected Palmer led the way for midfielders with Bruno Fernandes recovering from a poor start to the season under Ten Hag and despite being surrounded by a bunch of abject teammates under Amorim to place 4th overall. Jarrod Bowen had another great season, but it was certainly one of two halves, he was surprisingly a ghost point machine under Lopetegui, but those ghosts dropped off under Potter, and were replaced by goals! Iwobi had another huge season especially given how far he was falling in drafts, such a consistent performer! Eze finally made it through most of the season without injury and produced some great stuff particularly in the second half of the season as Palace stormed their way to an FA Cup win. In a similar vein Enzo Fernandez was a monster playing in a more advanced role in the 2nd half of the season, finishing 8th in the 2H FPts race! Despite frustrations at his dependency on attacking returns Rogers somehow squeaks into the top 25, I can only imagine how a certain TDS colleague who suffered through rostering him this season might react to this news!

The elite forwards really had fun this year with 8 of them making the top 25, this was the same amount as last season, but the drop off to the rest was much more stark, likely influenced by the reduced number of goals we have seen. We've already covered Salah, but Mbeumo has truly been one of the value picks of the draft, 9.1 gPPS and 15.3 PPS, propped up nicely by 5 penalty goals, he rarely ever let you down. Mbeumo's partner in crime Wissa has never been one to rack up the ghost points, in fact he managed just 5.5 gPPS this season, but what does that matter when you score 19 goals and provide 6 assists! Another absolute steal in the draft and one that many benefitted from picking up after he was dropped around GW5 for a supposedly serious injury that only ended up putting him out for 4 GWs.

At the start of the season it seemed as if Haaland was going to repeat his debut season heroics, 135 points in just 5 GWs was absurd, but he truly faded as City slowly imploded and had a significant injury to boot. Still considering everything to come 8th overall is respectable, however, I can only imagine the envy of those who picked Haaland over Salah in the draft! Isak ended up living up to his Round 1 status in drafts, but mangers had to be patient with him. He had a super slow start, but after GW8 he came alive, exploding with some huge scores, before tailing off again at the end of the season when he effectively became a penalty merchant. Still for him to make 34 starts was impressive, given his previous injury record. He now needs to bring more consistency next season, but that could be difficult given Newcastle will be competing in the Champions League.

A couple of personal favourites, Cunha and Semenyo were falling to round 4 or lower in drafts, but became fantasy studs! Semenyo was so consistent and actually got better as the season got on with a 11.1 PPS (1H) and a 12.6 PPS (2H) which saw him 6th overall in the second half of the season! Cunha was much more explosive, 14.8 PPS with a couple of scores pushing 30+, although a lack of discipline saw him only start 29 games, otherwise he would surely have made the top 5. Likely one we have to be wary of next season though given his impending move to United and huge over-performance on his expected goals; he scored 15 from just 8.6 xG! Another xG over-performer, Wood had a truly storming season given he was being taken in Round 8 to 10 in drafts, although a lot of this came in the first 2/3rds of the season where he was on fire, but like Forest's season his form petered out towards the end. 12.5 PPS up to GW27, but just 6 PPS after that tells the story of reverting to the mean slightly, given he ended on 20 goals from just 13.4 xG, which included 3 penalties.

A final shoutout to the legend that is Flekken who finally lived up to the save monster promise we were expecting since replacing David Raya at Brentford. We always knew that Brentford were a team that give up a lot of low quality shots, but Flekken's shot stopping was so bad last season that he was unable to benefit. However, this season saw a grand total of 153 saves that allowed him to sneak into the top 15 overall! The only other standouts were Pickford and Selz who weren't too far behind the Bees king, and early season Pope was fun too!

2nd Half of the Season Fantasy Points

Below we can see the graph for the most fantasy points starting from GW20 onwards. There are always a few slow starters who shine bright in the second half of the season and this will highlight these players who will have been forgotten in the graph above. These players will often make or break your season, if you managed to catch them at the right time then you can absolutely fly up the table!

We'll just focus on a few of the standouts here, and who else to start with but Jacob Murphy! He didn't become a consistent starter until GW14, but if you were lucky enough to pick him up at the start of that run you will have benefitted hugely from his incredible form! He scored 11.2 PPS (2H) and ranked 7th overall in that time which is nothing short of miraculous. He needed 8 goals and 13 assists to power him to this position though given he's not a big ghoster at just 5.8 gPPS. He'll likely have more competition on that right flank next season though so we'll have to see what the summer brings!

Elanga was a huge reason why Forest kept their momentum going in the middle part of the season. Early on he struggled for form and consistent starts, but around GW17 everything clicked, and like Murphy became a creative outlet for his team, scoring 6 goals and providing 11 assists. Clocking 12.1 PPS from GW17 ROS is no mean feat!

One player who benefitted significantly from a mid season manager change was Ait-Nouri. He was extremely hit or miss (mostly missing) before Vitor Pereira joined in December, registering just 7.2 PPS. But afterwards the switch to a back 5 really livened him up, as he contributed significantly to the attack, registering 4 goals and 7 assists, with a seriously handy 10.4 PPS (2H). Even that doesn't tell the whole story though, he had a couple of games pushing 30 points and plenty just under 20 in that period. He was an absolute beast, and it comes as no surprise that he is being linked with big clubs like Man City this summer.

Another player worth highlighting who actually doesn't make the top 25 here is Mac Allister. It was almost like a carbon copy of last season where he spent the first part of the season facilitating others in a more reserved role, which showed up in a paltry 5.7 PPS up to GW16. But his attacking influence grew and a command of set pieces meant that he more than doubled his production to 12.6 PPS from GW17 onwards. He was ranked as high as 8th for 2H FPts in GW34, but Liverpool's title win afforded Slot the chance to rest him due to a persistent injury that he had playing through, so he just dropped out.

Race to the most WAR

We all knew Mo was going to be streaks ahead in this metric, but it is quite striking how much more significant it is than from a total FPts perspective. In terms of fantasy points he is 21% ahead of 2nd place, while for WAR that goes up to 35%. Simply put if you drafted Salah in the summer you had an absolute cheat code and he will have likely contributed to many league winners this season!

The WAR metric rewards players for scoring above waiver wire replacement value and negatively effects them for scoring below replacement value. So some of the steady Eddie's you will have seen in the total FPts graphs will have disappeared, and the high PPS lower starts guys will see an uptick. The most striking example is De Brunye who ranks just 72nd for total FPts but had 14.2 PPS in his limited starts, which gives him enough WAR to rank 17th. This is why you have to keep hold of these high upside guys as frustrating as it is, you've got to ride out the tough times when they don't start, cause when they do, they can single handedly win you your matchup!

Others in that mould are Saka (10th), Amad (12th), Alexander-Arnold (14th) Porro (18th) and Maddison (19th), who were explosive when they were fit and starting, but sadly couldn't live up to the promise over a whole season for various reasons.

Race to the most Ghost Fantasy Points

A Ryan Barnes special here, having spent the season scouring for ghosters, we can now see who is the official ghostliest ghost of the 24/25 season... and that prize goes to the one an only Flekken! Saves and high claims galore contributed to 92% of his ghost points, what an absolute machine! It's a real shame that we are likely to see him leaving the Premier League this summer, but it was a truly fitting way to bow out if so!

In terms of trends we see many more goalkeepers (5) and defenders (13) than we do in the top 25 for FPts. With the -2 for goals conceded removed this catapults them up in the reckoning. The fact that Ramsdale makes this list should tell you as much, he ranked 2nd behind Flekken for saves (125), but unfortunately conceding 66 goals in 30 starts is really not going to help your cause. Still he was a fun play in weeks when Southampton were playing shot happy teams. No surprises that Munoz and Robinson dominate again for the defenders, but Wan Bissaka is also worth highlighting, he had such a good debut season for West Ham surprising us all with his attacking prowess, registering 2 goals and 6 assists. But he had the ghosts to back that up as even more amazingly he ranked 7th for completed dribbles (64), this would have been unheard of when he was at United! Yet he still kept up the defensive part of his game, ranking 1st for interceptions (66), taking that title away from Jedi this season!

It is surprising that just 4 midfielders make this list given they are normally the key pass power houses. It seems that just Palmer and Fernandes can live up to that status these days, but again injuries to some of the elite mids have likely affected this, as last season there were 9 on this list. Speaking of last season there weren't any forwards in the top 25, so Salah, Mbeumo and Semenyo, have done very well indeed to place so highly this season. Semenyo particularly is an interesting case, he was an absolute dribble monster, ranking 3rd with 69 CoS, and also the most trigger happy, he led the way for shots (125), but ranked 7th for the all important shots on target (40). Still it bodes well for next season especially if he stays at Bournemouth as the talisman; if he can pick that accuracy up a tad then he could boost his value even more.

Well, that's a wrap from me for the season, I hope everyone had lots of success in their fantasy leagues and can now enjoy a well-earned break! I'm sure we'll be seeing you all soon enough as we gear up for the 25/26 draft season!

For all the latest from The Draft Society, follow @Draft_Society on Twitter!

And for more in-depth and exclusive resources, become a member of The Inner Circle.

---

Have you heard about our revolutionary new Draft Fantasy Football app? We call it The Fantasy ToolKit. Expand to read more!

Each gameweek, The Fantasy Toolkit will bring you:

• Recommended waiver adds & drops

• Optimal lineup suggestions

• Matchup projections

• Trade calculator

• All in one customized and personalised package

It's included in our Ultimate Pass and Season Pass plans and will give you a massive leg up on your league-mates. Check out a full demonstration video HERE for more info!