The 21/22 Premier League season is finally over, but before we sign off for a well deserved break, we've decided to whet your appetite for next season with our Way Too Early 22/33 Draft Rankings! The Draft Society team has come together to rank their Top 50 Fantasy EPL Players if they were drafting right now. Check out our list below...hopefully it will get you salivating over the prospect of drafting once again in July or August!
These Way Too Early Rankings are based on the Fantrax Scoring System. Don't forget to check back in July for our biggest Fantasy EPL Draft Kit ever!
Way Too Early 22/23 Draft Rankings: Top 50
As ever, these Draft Rankings are based on Consensus Rankings provided by our Draft Society writers and analysts: The FF Chaps, Draft Genie, The Inner Geek, Joe Williams, Tottiandor, Ryan Barnes, DraftLad, RobbieP and Gavin Wright. They have each ranked their own Top 50 players going into next season, and these rankings have been combined to create an average ranking for each player.
N.B.: A ranking of 75 signifies that this player was not ranked inside the Top 50 by a particular analyst.
Top 10
Mohammed Salah comes out on top of our ROS Player Rankings - everyone other than Ryan & DraftLad have the Egyptian #1. In 2nd, most of our analysts have Kevin De Bruyne (with Draft Genie the outlier in stripping him of top 3 status). The top 6 is pretty cut and dry stuff, personal preference and projected starts play a part in the slight differences in ranking. But as we are talking about the best of the best, we all are pretty close in ranks (other than a few aberrations).
It is after the top 6 where it gets dicey. Chap One drops the bomb with a 19th rank for Bruno No-More-Penandes as he envisions serious teething problems for ten Haag and a change in system to force us to say adieu to "Ole Era Bruno". Maddison is an interesting player to highlight as he sneaks into the top 10 by virtue of DraftLad and Totti ranking him 9th but more so on the basis of unpredictability after the top 6, with players being ranked all over the place by our analysts. His actual aggregated rank is 11, which is still the end of the first round in 12-team leagues. This ranking might be a surprise considering his early season struggles, but he really turned it on in the second half of the season and with no European commitment for Leicester next season and an England WC spot up for grabs, many of us feel that he will be back to his old ways. After Bruno, Mount is the player we disagree on the most. He was ranked as high as 9 by Chap One and Joe and as low as 20 by Totti, who clearly feels like his flat-track-bullying ways warrant a lower rank.
11 to 20
New boy Erling Haaland just misses out on the top 10 as he comes in at 11. We're evenly split - 4 of our analysts have him in the top 10 and the other 4 put him lower than 15. This divergence in opinions is clear as day and it will surely be one of the hottest discussion points of the off-season. Will he galvanize this already unreal City team that has scored the most goals in the EPL in every season since 17/18 (the last 2 without a designated centre forward) and make them unthinkably good? Or will he struggle to adapt to Guardiola's system that notoriously finds it difficult to integrate out-and-out strikers?
After Haaland, it's a mixed bag. Luis Diaz beats out Diogo Jota (34th) as the 3rd Liverpool forward to be ranked on our board. We clearly agree that he will get the most minutes after Salah and Mané (Genie, Chap One and Joe even put him ahead of Mané in their ranks) The inclusion of Reece James in the top 20 is very much down to Genie and DraftLad's hopeful ranks of 7th and 13th, respectively, which undoubtedly relies on Chelsea managing to retool their defence (so that Reece does not have to feature at RCB) and rainter Eva Caneiro returning and applying the magic sponge to prevent further injuries to James (which restricted him to only 22, 25 and 16 starts the past 3 season). However, surely, if he can crack 30 starts, mostly at RWB, he is in the conversation for top 2 defenders come the end of the season.
Kulusevski is also a player on which we disagreed as he received rankings as high as 14th (Ryan) and as low as 33rd (Totti). This one comes down to trust in Daniel Levy realising the very limited window he has before Antonio Conte throws his toys out of the pram and storms off to make another amazing success story somewhere else (the man is a tactical genius, and also a nutcase). If the Spurs higher-ups strengthen well enough and optimise for success now, Kulu could be a gem. If inevitable Spursiness swallows Conte, they will not be able to cope with the added pressures of Champion's League and their fantasy assets will falter.
21 to 30
The 21 to 30 spots feature the quasi unrankable City triumvirate of Foden, Grealish, and Mahrez. They are sure to light it up and be in the conversation for the most valuable fantasy (and real life) assets of the season for 10 game stretches and will then disappear and be reduced to bit-part roles for other 10 game stretches. Pep Roulette is like the law of conservation of energy, it does not disappear, it transforms. In previous seasons, we were left wondering week-in week-out who might suddenly appear in the lineup for City. But this past season, players were used more periodically. For example, Mahrez started 2 out of the first 12 games, then proceeded to start 8 of the following 9. Grealish started 9/10 then 5/11. In short, rostering these players will continue to be almost as frustrating as trying to rank them.
Jadon Sancho deserves a mention here as well. His ranking (disregarding Genie's 6th overall) reflects the varying beliefs in new manager Erik Ten Hag's Man United revolution. Chap One is clearly not on board (as evidenced by his Bruno rank above) but Totti seems to believe that Bundesliga Sancho will make his long-awaited appearance in the EPL. Former first-rounder/demander of 100%+ of season's FAB budget Ronaldo just makes the top 30. Signs of decline and questions around his willingness to get on board with the new world order at Carrington make all of our analysts nervous about his prospects this campaign.
31 to 40
Bernardo Silva finished as the number 17 overall player this past season, having started 33 games for the champions. However, we will clearly not be fooled by an amazing season and Pep (and many others) declaring him the best (most in-form) midfielder in the world right now. We are not fooled easily like that. That said, as mentioned above, there is an inherent risk with all City players, and although past performance helps us value players, it is probably a very misleading factor when trying to look into Pep's head (see our Silva rank from last season). The usual fantasy studs occupy the 30s of our ranks and while there are a few wildcards here, most of these players will give you great value if you manage to pick them up at the end of the third or in the fourth round. Kieran Trippier deserves a mention as a player who might fly under the radar with a lot of turnover expected in Newcastle this summer. The Englishman will be the driving force in a defence expected to improve a lot in the off-season and has the meanest set piece delivery after JWP, so we expect him to be great value in the mid-rounds.
41 to 50
The players who round out our top 50 are a very mixed bag, with solid performers and punts alike. DCL, whether he stays at Everton or goes anywhere in the EPL, will definitely be a starter and have a point to prove and could be the steal of the draft. Jesus, if he gets his move to Arsenal and has no impediment to playing time, will also provide potential FWD1 value. Palace players, Olise and Zaha, sneak into the top 50 and could have great seasons if Vieira manages to build on his excellent first campaign.
And that's your lot. We would like to remind you that after a short break, we will be back with a bang. We will be providing THE BIGGEST DRAFT KIT the fantasy world has ever seen. Subscriptions to our 22/23 content will begin shortly and we are planning to unveil our Draft Kit content at the end of June. Enjoy a quick break from draft fantasy footy but stay tuned!
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