No Eye Test. No Opinions. Just Cold, Hard Stats.
Let’s cut the crap here, most “Team of the Year” articles are about as predictable as Arsenal bottling a title race. You already know how it goes: some washed pundit on telly chatting nonsense about “the vibes”, “the eye test”, or “how the game felt“. It’s that time again when every Tom, Dick, and Gary Neville drops their Team of the Year and guess what? We don’t care how it felt. We care about how it scored, at StatrDraft that is how we do things.
We’re taking your feelings, your X threads, your group chat agendas, rolling them up into a ball, and hoofing them straight into Row Z. Throwing out your feelings, your bias, and your dodgy football takes and letting the StatrDraft Data Model do what it does best, reward every action on the pitch, not just goals and assists.
So here it is… You Offical StatrDraft Certified 23/24 XI, powered by cold, hard numbers. Here’s the rules, the formation is 4-3-3 with 7 Subs (keeper, 2 defenders, 2 midfielders and 2 forwards). Let’s roll.
Goalkeeper
Mark Flekken (Brentford)
Brentford’s season might have fallen flatter than a pint left out overnight, but Mark Flekken was anything but. Look at this:
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Most points for a keeper on StatrDraft.
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Saves? Loads. Most in the league almost 30 ahead of Aaron Ramsdale
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3rd most high claims and punches. aka Box Monster
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Passes? Plenty. Most in the league, over 200 more than Jordan Pickford or Emi Martinez
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Distribution? Silky.
While other keepers were shipping goals and waving their arms about like they were hailing taxis in Dublin city centre after a night in Coppers, Flekken was racking up points by the bucketload with his shot-stopping and ball-playing antics. Numbers don’t lie.
Bench: Matz Sels (Nottingham Forest)
Matz Sels finishes the year as StatrDraft’s second-highest scoring keeper overall, outperforming the likes of Pickford, Henderson, and Raya over the full campaign.
An absolute wall between the sticks, pulling off save after save while Nottingham Forest climbed up the table this year to have a season that’s totally unprecedented. In almost any other season, he’s your number one, but Flekken’s mad season just edges him out for the starting gloves.
Defence – 4-3-3
RB: Daniel Muñoz (Crystal Palace)
wHerE’S TrEnT? I hear “that” corner of the internet shout, he’s on the bench. Justifiable so might I add. Trust us, this guy Munoz is an absolute stat machine.
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Highest-scoring defender on StatrDraft.
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A pressing monster.
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Most Tackles in the PL for a defender this season
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Interceptions, progressive actions – you name it, he did it.
He beat Trent Alexander-Arnold to the starting spot. A bigger team should be in for him this year but unfortunately for him Guehi, Eze, Mateta and Wharton are all ahead of him on Palace’s garden sale.
CB: Virgil van Dijk (Liverpool)
You thought he was finished. Well maybe not you per say but plenty pockets of the internet had been writing him off at the start of this season as being a busted flush. This writer may have also agreed at one point. But he’s been epic and our data says the same.
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Top 5 defender overall.
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Aerial dominance.
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Ball-playing brilliance. Most passes in the Pl overall this year and about 300 more than 2nd place Saliba
Still the Rolls Royce of centre-backs. Kept Liverpool ticking and your mate Dave very, very quiet after he declared VVD was “done”.
CB: Nathan Collins (Brentford)
Another Brentford lad sneaking into the team. Yes, we double-checked. Yes, we’re serious. Did they get good or is Nathan Collins possibly the single most slept on centre back in the Prem? Only 2 years ago the big boys were after him, wonder if he pulled a Declan Rice how much he would suddenly be worth?
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4th overall defender on StatrDraft.
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Big clearances, headed wins, and passes galore.
Did he have a single standout moment on Match of the Day? Absolutely not.
Did he quietly rack up more points than 99% of the league’s defenders? You bet.
LB: Antonee Robinson (Fulham)
Fulham’s turbo-charged left-back absolutely cleaned up, honestly he might be one of our most talked about players this season. Both on the podcast and in our written content, he has been one of the outstanding performers in the league this year.
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3rd highest defender in StatrDraft.
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Unreal work rate.
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Joint 3rd for assets alongside Bakayo Saka
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Only Aaron Wan Bissaka and Ryan Gravenberch have more interceptions
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Tackles, take-ons, recovery runs.
You wouldn’t fancy marking him in 5-a-side, never mind 38 games in the Premier League. He was everywhere. All sounds on a move up the ladder seem to have gone quite recently, which is mental for a lad in his prime years with Premier League experience. Fulham will be lucky to keep him after the year he has had.
Defensive Bench:
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Trent Alexander-Arnold (Liverpool) – Second-highest defender overall. Barely missed out but Muñoz’s all-round game edges it.
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James Tarkowski (Everton) – The StatrDraft cult hero. Block merchant. Clearance king. Our hearts say starter, the model says bench. Balance.
Midfield
Cole Palmer (Chelsea)
Done by February? Literally in the first half of the season “Cold” Palmer was pacing to the the player of the year. Goals, Assists, Swagger, he had it all, and come January. Nada! But his season start was so good, he’s still top of the pile in May. Cole Palmer, ladies and gentlemen.
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Midfield’s top scorer on StatrDraft.
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Goals, key passes, and surprisingly high defensive actions.
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Carried Chelsea on his tiny 21-year-old shoulders.
If you had him in your draft, you were cooking until he ran out of steam. The data doesn’t care when the points were scored it just loves that they were.
Bruno Fernandes (Manchester United)
Look, we don’t make the rules. Man United are in a heap and they are set to have their worst ever season in a Premier League with potential 15th or 16th place finish. Imagine backing that last August. Amorim has an awful lot to change at Manchester United if they want to be doing anything in the league at all next year. Luckily for the Red Devils there is one man they can hang their hat on. Bruno Fernandes has massively woken up since this Roy Kean rant and the Statr model says Bruno delivered.
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Second overall midfield scorer.
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Key passes, chance creation, and attacking volume.
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Loves a bonus action.
United fans will say he’s underrated. The rest of the footy fanbase think he’s the king of strops. Say what you want about his face, his moaniness etc but on StatrDraft, he’s a point-scoring machine.
Jarrod Bowen (West Ham)
While the nation was sleeping on him, Bowen was balling. Criminally under rated and one who goes madly under the radar, maybe because he’s an attacking player who isn’t all flash but quietly goes about his business as West Ham’s natural Mark Noble predecessor. Who knows but when we crunch the numbers he comes out 3rd for all the midfielders in the Premier League this season.
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Third overall midfield scorer.
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Massive work rate.
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Chances, crosses, and goals.
Didn’t break the internet, but broke some of the scoring charts.
Midfield Bench:
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Alex Iwobi (Fulham) – One of the StatrDraft model’s hidden gems. Quietly elite. The Hidden Hero of the Season
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Eberechi Eze (Crystal Palace) – Missed a few games but danced his way into the bench. Just edged out Enzo and Damsgaard.
Attack
RW: Mo Salah (Liverpool)
The king. The GOAT for Liverpool arguably . The StatrDraft Player of the Season. We could right a big lamenting piece on him but let’s just do a whistle stop, Most Goals in the PL this season, Most assists in the PL this season, on track to have the best ever single season of any player in the league ever, Player of the Year, Premier league winner and only because Fifa are mental and he’s not playing in their fancy new moneyball competition this summer (Club world cup) will be the only reason he is not a shoe in for the Ballon D’or.
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Highest scoring player overall.
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Consistent as death, taxes, and Arsenal bottling it.
Missed a few weeks and STILL finished top. Salah does Salah things. End of.
ST: Alexander Isak (Newcastle)
Everyone was hyped about Haaland. Meanwhile, Isak quietly bodied the centre-forward charts. His partnership with Jacob Murphy is starting to edge into the Kane and Son territory, that’s how good they have been and it’s not even a remote stretch to say Isak is and has been the standout number 9 in the league this season and arguably in the top 10 hitmen in Europe right now.
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Best striker on StatrDraft.
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Dribbles, goals, link-up play
A stat-nerd’s dream. Get used to hearing his name more and more next season as he starts to enter his peak years.
LW: Bryan Mbeumo (Brentford)
Another Brentford baller? You better believe it. How in the love of all that is holy are 3 Brentford players in the squad while there is no Arsenal, and only one representative from Chelsea and nothing at all from City. Goes to show how well some of the Brentford Boyos have been this season or how some teams are so focused on the team system players cant stand out, looking straight down the barrel at Jack Grealish over at Manchester City as the prime example. Anyway I digress because this isn’t about what could have been, it’s about what happened and Mbeumo has been so good this season, stepping out of the shadow of Ivan Toney to cast an arguably bigger shadow on who is set to take his place this summer.
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Second highest-scoring forward.
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Chances created, goals, defensive contributions.
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Absolute weapon when fit.
His injury robbed us of even more StatrDraft points. A real “what could have been”.
Forward Bench:
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Matheus Cunha (Wolves) – Wolves’ driving force. Points everywhere.
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Erling Haaland (Man City) – Somehow slipped into the team.. Marginally edged out Diaz and Semenyo.
The Data Has Spoken. You Were Wrong.
Not even going to lie, I just wanted an excuse to use this clip, but that’s all folks! This is the only Team of the Year that ditches the hype, ignores the headlines, and sticks to what actually happened on the pitch. No favouritism. No “he passes the eye test” because I like how the lad moves. No “he’s just got that dawg in him” (sorry Fozcast peeps, we know ye love that line).
The StatrDraft model doesn’t care what boots you wear, what club you play for, or whether you’re trending on TikTok. It cares about performance. Every tackle. Every key pass. Every interception. Every goal. Every save.
That’s how Flekken beats Alisson.
>That’s how Muñoz benches Trent.
>That’s how Mbeumo outshines Haaland, Diaz, and Son.
Want to argue? Cool. But we’ll be here next season with the same system, same transparency, and same winning edge while you’re still picking players based on how they made you feel while watching them with the sledgehammer tones of Jamie Carragher in your ear.
Think you know better? Well step right this way and join the waiting list to play your league, your way next season.
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