The Fantasy Premier League season is over.

So, what more is there to talk about? LOADS!

We can overanalyse our FPL seasons until August, easy. And, we can have some fun at the same time.

With that in mind, we decided to do our FPL teams of the year.

The rules are simple – you have to have owned the player at least once over the season of 22/23 in FPL.  The rest is up to you.

I (James) am going to kick us off with my FPL team of the year for 2022/23. Joe will then do his team. Then we will look at the highest scoring team of the year.

Stats

Before I get into it, lets look at some stats!

Who is this guy?

You can check out https://www.anewpla.net/fpl/report/82243 to see my team or https://www.anewpla.net/fpl/report/6205100#statSection to see Joe’s team, or even just try it with your own.

From the site we can clearly see that my second half of the season was much better. We already knew that right? But the average points score was 57.9 and 74.4, respectively. Naturally we expect a better score in the second half of the season because of chips, but it’s HUGE. It’s similar for Joe too (who had a not so great start like me). He got 58.4 points per gameweek in gameweeks 1-19 and 71.8 in gameweeks 20-38.

One big difference between Joe and I was my willingness to take a hit this year, something I didn’t think I was particularly big on. But, this year I took a total points hit of 40 points (10 hits). Joe, on the other hand, took 6 hits for 24 points.

Perhaps an explanation for this was that Joe was far more trusting of his bench than I was. He had 11 auto subs come on for a total of 59 points (5.4 per game). I had 5 auto subs for a total of 28 points (5.6 per game).

It seems like this willingness to take a hit was a big difference maker between us. I beat Joe by 42 points this year. My “total immediate points gained from transfers” score was 68 points better than Joe’s, 261 vs. 193 respectively.

Another big divider between the two of us was Joe’s decision to triple captain Haaland in gameweek 23 against Arsenal and Villa. And, my decision to triple captain Rashford a week earlier against Leeds and Crystal Palace. Because we both captained Haaland and Rashford when the other triple captained him the final points difference is only ten points. However, that is about a quarter of the difference between us.

Personally, I don’t take great pleasure from this. I think all the chips are far too powerful and captaincy can be a bit of a joke too. I’d happily play the game without either (with the exception of the wildcards, which are genuinely useful).

However, I know people and FPL towers love these ‘exciting’ tools so, as a compromise, I’d love to see two sets of these chips. It would work like this: Like the first and second wildcard, you would have to use the first set of chips in the first half of the season and the second set in the second half.

I can hear you now: ‘hang on James, if you hate the chips then why would you want more?’ Because it weakens the impact of them individually. Plus, I’d like to play the chips when it might actually be fun at the start of the season, rather than optimising for a double gameweek to try and win my mini league. It’s the right thing to do but it is a bit dull.

My FPL 2022/23 Team of the Season

I played 3-4-3 the most this season (24 times) and it was the formation that got me the highest average points (68.7), so that’s what I’m rolling with here.

Goalkeepers

Kepa Arrizabalaga

I owned Kepa for 14 gameweeks where he scored me 59 points. Bringing him in was one of those good decisions I made early on which puts him in goal for me. I know he wasn’t reliable towards the end of the season, and I sold him for De Gea (who I considered for this spot), but Kepa’s 4.2 points per game was just a source of solid reliability for me at the time.

Defenders

Kieran Trippier

Ooh what an edgy pick James. The top scoring defender in FPL, so original…

I know, but I can’t help it. I love Tripps. He’s so calm, cool and collected on the pitch and actually respects the refs which I have time for.

But it’s his FPL performance that gets him here. 168 points over 31 games for me. A disappointing end to his season but, when he was good, he was very good.

Ben White

Great tan, great player.

I never owned Saliba and only had Gabriel for four weeks but Ben White was in my squad for over half the season. I got him in for 4.5 and boy did he deliver. 75 points over the 15 appearances he made for my team.

But what was even sweeter, was him coming off the bench to get me an assist one gameweek. That pissed Joe off no end.

Trent Alexander-Arnold

He was crap at the start. I hated him. But his finish to the season was really good and he was back to his FPL best. 65 points over 14 games and I look forward to owning him again next season.

—

Without looking, I accidentally picked the top three scoring defenders… Let’s hope for some more original picks in the rest of the team…

Midfielders

Martinelli

My most-owned Arsenal mid this year. Forgive me Gabriel, I lost confidence in you when Trossard started and it was a mistake.

Kind of a bittersweet one this one. I never should have sold him, I wasted a number of transfers around him. Yet, he was incredible and scored me 118 points over 24 games.

Saka

My second most-owned Arsenal midfielder who got me 106 points over 15 games. A huge 7.1 points per game.

This season was brilliant for him and even if he trailed off a bit towards the end he can be proud of the contribution to my team… and his.

Xhaka

Didn’t expect to see him on this list did ya? Well, he is here for two reasons.

Firstly, because Joe has an irrational hatred of a loyal servant to his beloved Arsenal, and I love to annoy Joe.

And, secondly, and most importantly, because he bagged two goals and an assist on the last day for me to get me 15 points off my bench! Just to underline this, my auto subs this year were crap and I only got 28 points from them. Xhaka is more than 50% of that…

I only bought him in because I needed a makeweight for Kane. And, I assumed this was his last game for Arsenal so he would try and go out with a bang. Which he did. He also missed a sitter for his hat trick…

But when Dunk and Shaw didn’t play he came off my bench and capped off an excellent final day of the season for me.

Rashford

One of my favourite players personally. I love how he has matured as a person and I really, really wanted to own him going into the season because of his great price. But I wasn’t convinced and ended up going with Mason Mount, who I considered steady if not explosive. Turns out I was wrong about that one…

I also really, really wanted to own him going into the second half of the season, but Joe talked me out of that one (see! He makes mistakes too!).

When I did eventually get him in, he scored 157 points over 15 games, including a MONSTER 60 points when I triple captained him in double gameweek 22.

Forwards

Haaland

Yeah, can’t exactly not have him can I? An incredible season from a real life and FPL standpoint. ‘Nuff said.

Kane

My quiet killer. Never particularly highly owned but a stalwart of my team. 30 goals, over 200 FPL points, and 192 points for me (I captained him 4 times) over 23 games. Moreover, I captained him on the last day, got 32 points, and stormed from second to first in my mini-league and won the cup. A final day comeback that I never expected.

(Before you say: what about Xhaka!? Kane was the difference maker as my rival took the decision to captain Salah. I ended up winning the league by 15 points so Xhaka’s 15 was only key from an OR standpoint. I could have had a one pointer instead of Xhaka, so Kane won it for me.)

Ivan Toney

There are no Toney gifs…

I considered Ollie Watkins for this one thanks to his stellar performance since the restart. But I couldn’t look past Toney who delivered on so many occasions in my dreadful first half of the season. He was one of few calls I made right then, so I felt he deserved this “honour.”

Bench

Goalkeeper

Ward

How is there a Danny Ward gif but no Toney gif?!

I know, I know. Hear me out. Danny Ward was the man we had all been waiting for. A 4.0 starting goalkeeper. The dream.

He ruined your season as he did mine. I had him at the start, sold him for his great run and then bought him back for a string of blanks and he was eventually dropped.

He doesn’t make this list because he was great. But he makes this list as one of the greatest FPL trolls in history. A truly glorious achievement.

Defenders

Lewis Dunk

Weirdly, this was the hardest slot in my team of the year to fill. I made so many transfers at the back that only Trippier, Cancelo (er, remember him?), White and Trent made more than 10 appearances for me.

The two guys that come to mind are Shaw and Dunk. Shaw had some explosive performances in my team with an average of 9.3 points per appearance. But I’m going with Lewis Dunk who was in my squad for 17 weeks, played 10 times and got me an average of 4.9 points per appearance. It’s not sexy but its reliable, and that’s why I got him in the first place.

Neco Williams

I know… He is wearing the wrong kit… These gifs were easier with the first team

No, he wasn’t that good. He also was mega cheap. And for twelve weeks he was in my squad. For ten of those weeks he just sat on the bench but when he came off he got me a 7 whole points. He was a good fifteenth man and that’s all you can ask for from this slot.

Midfielder

Andreas Pereira

It had to be didn’t it? Who do you want coming off your bench if not this guy? 123 points for a 4.5 midfielder. Come on, that’s great! There were even points of the season that we considered or even actually started him.

There it is. In all its red flag glory.

That’s it.

Wanna tell us about your season?

Get in touch on Twitter and tell us about your team of the year, or even your unsung heroes.