Premier League: Superbru Team of the Season!

With the 2018/19 Premier League season now complete, it's time to take a look at the players who shone most throughout the campaign in terms of Superbru fantasy points. We saw a record-breaking title between Manchester City and Liverpool with both teams winning an incredible amount of games, so as you'd expect, their players scored far better than most.

However, rather than this just being an XI that matches the understandable team of the season that most people would name full of players from those two clubs, we're sticking to the rule of no more than two players from a single club that our fantasy game enforces. Based on fantasy points only and with players from the same club replaced by those who compromise the overall team points total least, here is the 2018/19 Premier League team of the season:

Goalkeeper

OK, let's begin with the player that's perhaps the most surprising inclusion in this XI (in my opinion at least), Jordan Pickford. The third highest-scoring keeper this season behind Alisson (166) and Ederson (158), it feels as if Everton have been quite poor defensively for a lot of the season and therefore Pickford - who has made a fair few errors as well - seems fortunate to have a place in this team.

However, a look at the stats shows you why Pickford has earned plenty of points especially in the closing months of the campaign. Marco Silva started to get things right defensively throughout March and April. From their 3-0 win over Cardiff on the 26th February onwards, Everton kept 8 clean sheets in 11 games including against Arsenal, Chelsea and Manchester United. As a result, Pickford has ended up with the joint third largest number of clean sheets this season (14, like Chelsea's Kepa). Penalty saves are also great for fantasy points and no keeper made more than Pickford (3) this season. Cardiff's Neil Etheridge topped the charts alongside the England number one.

Defence

Again, this backline is filled with substitutes for the higher scoring players from City and Liverpool, as the points margin is smaller among the defenders when compared to the giant totals managed by the attacking players from the 'Big Six'. The three regulars in Liverpool's back four, Andy Robertson, Virgil van Dijk and Trent Alexander-Arnold all scored more points than Chelsea's Cesar Azpilicueta. As did Manchester City's Aymeric Laporte. Kyle Walker (146) and David Luiz (143) were also removed from this XI due to team limits.

We are left with a very interesting back three as an impressive Premier League arrival and perhaps the breakthrough player of the season join the consistent Azpilicueta. Though the Spanish defender has arguably failed to reach the standards of the last couple of seasons, those are very high standards. Azpilicueta was one of only six players to make more than 100 tackles this season and he managed 5 assists in addition to a rather controversial goal at Cardiff.

Two of the players to have made more tackles than Azpilicueta this season are his defensive teammates in this TOTS. Only Wilfred Ndidi and Idrissa Gueye made more tackles than Aaron Wan-Bissaka and Ricardo Pereira in the 2018/19 Premier League season. Interestingly, they're quite different players so their similar points totals demonstrate that there are lots of ways in which to score nicely in our game. Both players only missed three games this season, Pereira had 2 goals and 6 assists whereas Wan-Bissaka had none of either! Instead, AWB had more clean sheets and also picked up plenty of points for the number of tackles, interceptions and dribbles he completed.

Midfield/Attack

It's the additional points for dribbles completed, chances created and shots on target that also put Eden Hazard ahead of all others in our game this season. The Chelsea star was this year's highest points scorer after managing the most assists in the league (15) and scoring 16 goals. His tally of 233 points for the season is 2 more than Mo Salah who naturally also makes this TOTS along with the other two players that make up the trio of African players to share this year's Golden Boot award, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and Sadio Mane.

Though criticised for much of the season, Paul Pogba finished with 167 fantasy points, most of which came during the very strong spell United experienced following the initial interim appointment of Ole Gunnar Solskjaer. Pogba also managed plenty of goals from the penalty spot - it's definitely worth giving penalty takers extra consideration when picking your team for next season when VAR first arrives in the Premier League.

The final two members of this year's TOTS are Manchester City's main attacking threats, Sergio Aguero and Raheem Sterling. Having been directly involved in 29 and 27 goals respectively, Aguero and Sterling were the main finishers for a City team that proved as lethal throughout this campaign as they were in 2017/18.

What are your thoughts on this TOTS? Basing it on points allows us to form an objective XI, but who would you change in this XI while sticking to the team limits from a subjective point of view?

A big thanks to those of you who got involved in either of our Premier League fantasy games this season and we hope to have you all back in August for the new campaign!