Fantasy football Premier League: The unofficial Dream Team awards of the season
It's awards season, folks!
Well, actually, we're not quite sure what season it is (or even what day it is, for that matter).
But with the Premier League and all the fantasy football fun that goes along with it currently paused for an uncertain amount of time, we figured we'd start dishing out some unofficial Dream Team awards.
Because why not, eh?
MANAGERS' PLAYER OF THE SEASON - Mohamed Salah
It's hard to look beyond Salah, who's currently topping our points chart with 211 points - slightly better than his Liverpool teammate Sadio Mane.
Sure, the Egyptian King hasn't impressed in the same way he did in the 2017/18 campaign, but he's managed to remain fit and relevant when so many other players failed to do so - which is also why he's our most-picked player at 59.8%.
Harry Kane, Marcus Rashford and Raheem Sterling all had a shot at this one, but their injury problems and/or a drop in form swung in Salah's favour.
NEWCOMER OF THE SEASON - Nicolas Pepe
Surprised? Yep, us too.
But the points don't lie, and Pepe's haul of 116 makes him the best-placed new player to the Premier League and fantasy football this season, just above Sebastien Haller (106) and Christian Pulisic (93).
The summer signing initially struggled to adapt to his new club and was quite disappointing in the early months, but enjoyed some sporadically excellent Game Weeks - with the best being the 18 points he picked up for his brace against Vitoria in the Europa League.
SURPRISINGLY GOOD PLAYER OF THE SEASON - Adama Traore
Traore is currently just 27 points behind Salah at the top of the table, which is actually bonkers when you really think about it.
The Wolves winger's miraculous rise has been one of the stories of the season - seeing him go from a brutish speedster with no end-product, to one of the classiest and most eye-catching players in the Premier League.
Not only is he comfortably inside Dream Team's top 10, he's also the player with the most Star Man awards - our points bonus award for the highest individual rating in a match - and the most 7+ ratings.
Whatever he's been doing differently this season, we hope he keeps it up!
SURPRISINGLY AWFUL PLAYER OF THE SEASON - Luka Milivojevic
This time last season, we were absolutely raving about Crystal Palace's likeable Serbian bruiser.
Milivojevic was a fantasy football delight - consistently picking up the Star Man award for his all-action displays, while also proving to be very handy from 12-yards out.
He netted 10 times from the penalty spot in 2018/19 - a marvellous record which made him a Dream Team favourite of ours - but this season he's only found the net twice.
His total of just 22 points this season is far from what we expected, and certainly wasn't aided by his recent red card against Derby in the FA Cup.
I WANT THE GROUND TO SWALLOW ME UP AWARD - Ryan Bertrand
Yikes, here we go.
Earlier in the season, Bertrand picked up a scarcely believable -11 points in Game Week 10 - quite possibly the single worst points haul we’ve ever seen - when he started in Southampton's 9-0 capitulation against Leicester.
The defender was sent off early into the first-half with the Saints already a goal down, and he then sat by himself in the dressing room (we presume, anyway) while they shipped a further eight more goals – including hat-tricks for both Ayoze Perez and Jamie Vardy.
A night the England international will want to forget, no doubt.
I'M TEARING MY HAIR OUT AWARD - Alexandre Lacazette
On his day, Lacazette can be one of the most formidable strikers in Europe... but his day seems to be few and far between at the moment.
Much was expected of the France striker at Arsenal this season after he won the club’s Player of the Year award at the end of 2018/19, but an ankle injury in September followed by long-periods without a goal has made him fiercely unpopular among Dream Team managers.
What’s worse has been the usual brilliance of his teammate Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and the rise of youngster Gabriel Martinelli – making his lack of goals all the more obvious, and frustrating.
MADE OF GLASS AWARD - Aymeric Laporte
It’s been a difficult season for fans of Man City's Laporte.
The star centre-back, who's widely considered one of the best in the Prem, has missed a large chunk of the campaign through injury, with the Frenchman missing every game between mid-September and January.
He then made just four appearances before heading back to the treatment room for another troublesome spell on the sidelines after he limped off during City’s terrific 2-1 win over Real Madrid in the Champions League.
REDEMPTION AWARD - Jamal Lewis
It was all going a little bit pear-shaped for Lewis before Norwich hosted Leicester at the end of February.
The defender, who is also one of the game’s cheapest players at just £0.5m, surprised us all by netting the only goal of the game to earn the Canaries a valuable win and himself 18 Dream Team points for Game Week 27.
That tidy haul was down to an accumulation of his goal, the game’s Star Man award and Norwich’s clean-sheet, which all went a long way to improving his overall points total, which at one stage was the WORST on the game with an awful total of -13 points - yup, that's right, his total was even lower than Bertrand's before Game Week 27.
BLINK AND YOU'LL MISS HIM AWARD - Billy Gilmour
We were all very excited about Billy Gilmour around the beginning of March.
The Chelsea teenager burst onto the scene with two very good performances against Liverpool and then Everton - earning himself the Man of the Match gong in both games.
We, of course, got ahead of ourselves and added the Scotsman to Dream Team, starting him off at £1.5m just in time for a complete shut down of all football thanks to the coronavirus pandemic.
Um, so yeah, it was nice to have you, Billy.
