With all this media coverage around different “Team of the Decade” flavours, I thought about bringing that concept to our world of FPL. Given that fantasy points reward players in a significantly different way to real-life football, this team is set out with some restrictions to truly capture the essence of playing FPL. Mainly, it’s the fact players change every year in FPL. A 5.0m Harry Kane scoring 20 goals is very different to an 11.0m Harry Kane scoring them in fantasy teams, whereas the difference is negligible in real-life.
As a result, the team is primarily set up to capture the one or two top bargains from each season and have them in one cohesive XI. As such, I’ve tried to avoid feast and famine players, but rather went for a collection of low-to-mid priced players who’ve had an explosive season (or half-season). While we’ve all had fun from years of David Silva ticking over 180 points around a price of 9.5m, it’s a lot more valuable to get the same points successively through cheaper gems such as Charlie Adam, Michu and Dele Alli.
To make sure it’s not a team from the whole of 2015-16, I picked one bargain player from every season. To balance it out, 2015-16 gets two picks. The goal is to pick low or mid-priced players and fit them into an FPL formation. Admittedly, this means a lot of cult heroes do not make it such as Luis Suarez, Mohamed Salah, George Boyd or Etienne Capoue. This is purely for the season-long equivalents of the Sessegnons (and not the Zigics) in FPL.
With that, let’s get bouncing:
2010-11: CHARLIE ADAM – MID (5.5m)
The GOAT of promoted players. Charlie Adam was the captain and chief playmaker of Blackpool, coming in at 5.0m. He also took all the set pieces and penalties. Having an incredible 192 points, he is best remembered for being a lock for 3 bonus points in the BPS of yesteryear (no PPI or BPS metrics back then).
Honorable Mentions: Andy Carroll, Chicharito
2011-12: MICHEL VORM – GK (4.0m)
Admittedly, Vorm’s name is influenced by the need of a goalkeeper which sees him edge out Papiss Cisse’s amazing exploits. Coming in as a 4.0m goalkeeper for a Swansea side who were rock solid at home, Vorm kept an amazing 14 clean sheets and racked up 143 saves as well. He also made a reputation as a penalty saving goalkeeper, saving 2. While he only racked up 3 bonus points on the then-new EA Sports PPI system, it was still a brilliant 158 points for someone who rose up to 5.2m by the end of the season.
Honorable Mentions: Papiss Cisse, Gylfi Sigurdsson, Danny Simpson, GW2 free wildcard
2012-13: MICHU – MID (6.5m)
Where else could you go? Coming in as a 6.5m midfielder, there were hopes that Swansea had pulled a coup in replacing Gylfi Sigurdsson with Michu given his prior success at Rayo Vallecano. But even then, his exploits beggared belief. He scored the first goal of the new season against bottom-side QPR, a team he would go on to haul 18-pointers against in both games. He would also score in both games against the champions, Man Utd. In total had 18 goals in the season, playing ‘in the hole’ on the then-trendy 4-2-3-1 or as an OOP striker. While he had a big drop-off in the second half of the season after Swansea’s Capital One Cup victory, it still didn’t stop his price from rising all the way till 8.5m that year.
Honorable Mentions: Ben Davies, Romelu Lukaku, Marouane Fellaini
2013-14: AARON RAMSEY – MID (5.5m)
Aaron Ramsey’s season was, to put it mildly, unexpected. To put into context, Ramsey had 7 goals in the previous 5 seasons prior (over 100 appearances) He was playing as a deep midfielder in an Arsenal team where both Theo Walcott and Santi Cazorla scored around 200 points the season before, and who also had just signed Mesut Ozil. And yet, Ramsey stood out and provided new lessons to many seasoned veterans who refused to transfer him in. He was an enabler to a quartet of Luis Suarez, Yaya Toure, Wayne Rooney and Sergio Aguero; and yet matched all of them. By mid-season, had gone from 5.5m to 7.6m; already on 8 goals and 6 assists. Unfortunately, he suffered an injury in GW18 that ruled him out all the way till GW34. He came back at the end of the season to give two more double-figure hauls and win Arsenal a FA Cup final; ending on amazing 146 points from just 23 appearances.
Honorable Mentions: Adam Lallana, Raheem Sterling
2014-15: HARRY KANE – FWD (5.0m)
If we thought Ramsey was an unexpected whirlwind, Harry Kane was a hurricane (pardon the pun). After some failed loan spells, he was Tottenham’s 3rd choice striker and rarely get off the bench for the first 10 games, with his 5.0m price falling to 4.8m. Eventually, he scored a winner off the bench early November and cemented a spot in the first team. While he started slowly with only one goal in his first few starts, his low price brought him into most FPL benches. Then, as most had him on the bench, that 19-point haul against seemingly impenetrable Chelsea happened. And the rest is history.
Honorable Mentions: Nathaniel Clyne, Ryan Bertrand, Charlie Austin
2015-16: RIYAD MAHREZ – MID (5.5m) and JAMIE VARDY – FWD (6.0m)
Who else from 2015-16 than Leicester’s two main (attacking) protagonists? Riyad Mahrez started the season with a supposedly weird price of 5.5m, too low for a 4th mid but too high for a 5th mid. Double-digit hauls in his each of the first three weeks quashed that – amidst a sea of established stars underperforming. He was soon matched by 6.0m Jamie Vardy, who put paid to the notion of “due a blank” with a scoring streak of goals in 11 successive games. They both often assisted each other and scored incredible points tally. Mahrez ended on 240 points, while Vardy got 211 points. Despite his tally being higher than the FPL-best of both Raheem Sterling and Eden Hazard, Mahrez was unlucky in not scoring more and inching towards the 300 points mark. His output suffered from Leicester’s defensive tactics in the second half of the season and also the loss penalty duties to Vardy.
Honorable Mentions: Dele Alli, Toby Alderweireld, Odion Ighalo, Dimitri Payet
2016-17: JOSH KING – MID (5.5m)
2015-16 was always a hard act to follow and, given Leicester’s rise, all the top clubs improved the following season. While cult heroes emerged such as Marcos Alonso, Zlatan Ibrahimovic, along with re-emerging assets such as Eden Hazard – most of them were fairly highly priced to begin with. In that sense, the best cheap option was OOP 5.5m midfielder Josh King. While he only had 3 goals in the first half, he switched gears in the second half of the season to finish on 16 goals and getting a very healthy 178 points.
Honorable Mentions: Gareth McAuley, Tom Heaton, Heung-Min Son (a bit expensive at 7.5m)
2017-18: ANDY ROBERTSON – DEF (5.0m)
Robertson started the season as a 5.0m defender in a leaky Liverpool side, albeit one that started to develop home comforts. While he mostly sat out the first 15 gameweeks to Alberto Moreno (dropping to 4.6m), his belated introduction coinciding with the signing of Virgil Van Dijk led an uptick of fortunes. He averaged around 5.0 ppg in 22 appearances, getting a league-high 5 assists and outscoring all the other Liverpool defenders who’d played more minutes than him. As we know now, he was just getting warmed up.
Honorable Mentions: Pascal Gross, Nick Pope, Richarlison
2018-19: TRENT ALEXANDER-ARNOLD – DEF (5.0m)
This one was hard, given the amount of bargain options and Robertson’s selection. Alexander-Arnold, though, needs to be in. As a 5.0 defender, he scored 185 points and averaged 6.4 ppg. He somehow did that while missing 9 games, primarily due to a mid-season injury, which is why he did not break the 200-point barrier like his compatriot Robertson. His tally of 10 assists in the last 12 games was amazing even by Messi’s standards and he ended the season with more attacking returns than Robertson and just four fewer bonus points. The best season by a defender in FPL history, a pity he didn’t play more in it.
Honorable Mentions: Raul Jimenez, Matt Doherty, Aaron Wan-Bissaka
2019-20: JOHN LUNDSTRAM – DEF (4.0m)
The new GOAT of promoted teams. After FPL towers tried their hardest not to give another 4.0m defender, they ended up giving something even better. Lundstram is classified as a defender in FPL, yet he’s a box-to-box midfielder who is Sheffield United’s biggest midfield threat. On top of that, he’s also part of one of the best defences in the league. There’s a clear case that Lundstram has been very unlucky to have only had 3 goals and 2 assists so far, 13 games into the season. Yet, he’s still the top scoring defender right now. If Sheffield can keep their defensive resilience, and Lundstram ups his tally, we could be on course for a successive 200-point season by a defender; this one starting at 4.0m.
Honorable Mentions: Tammy Abraham, Caglar Soyuncu, John McGinn
FINAL TEAM
Goalkeepers – Michel Vorm
Defenders – Trent Alexander-Arnold, John Lundstram, Andy Robertson
Midfielders – Charlie Adam, Josh King, Riyad Mahrez, Michu, Aaron Ramsey
Forwards – Harry Kane, Jamie Vardy
Bench – Nick Pope, Raul Jimenez, Toby Alderweireld, Nathaniel Clyne
What are your thoughts on this? Would you make changes? What would your team be? Also, are there other spins on this you could think of, and if so how’d that team look?
