West Ham United Fantasy Premier League Preview 2020/21

When Yarmolenko scored that equaliser on the final matchday against Aston Villa I really thought that they would score again and keep Bournemouth up. Unfortunately there isn’t much to be said about West Ham’s 2019/20 season. They finished lowly 16th when I thought they would be definitely be in the top half of the table. West Ham scored 49 goals and conceded 62 goals last season. We could possibly see west ham go down this season if they aren’t careful they were battling to avoid relegation once the game restarted back in June after Coronvirus stopped the game for three months.

Michail Antonio was West Ham’s highest scoring player with only 111 points. Another 3 players scored over 100 points: Mark Noble, Declan Rice and Sebastian Haller. Antonio was the top scorer with 10 goals while Pablo Fornals had the most assists with 7. West Ham kept 7 clean sheets last season. 

West Ham’s opening 5 games are:

Newcastle (H)

Arsenal (A)

Wolves (H)

Leicester (A)

Tottenham (A)

West ham have very difficult fixtures to start the season and then in Gameweek 6 they played Manchester City, then the following week they play Liverpool. I don’t think I’ll have too many West Ham players in my team or even in my player pool for the very reason that the only game that is favourable for them is the Newcastle game, every other game is pretty much a 4/5 rating of hardness. West Ham defenders and goalkeepers should definitely not be in your team as West Ham will leak goals. Last season when facing the teams they are playing in the opening 5 games of the season they got 1 point from a possible 30 and that was a 2-2 draw with Newcastle. They scored 9 goals while conceding 24 goals. An average of nearly 2.5 a game! If these stats don’t steer you away from West Ham players then I don’t know what will.

Midfielders:

Felipe Anderson (6.5): His first season in the Premier League was pretty good but dropped off last season. He was involved in a matchday squad 29 times starting 20 times and coming off the bench in 5 games. He missed 3 games due to a back injury. He played only 1493 minutes last season scoring 66 points contributing 1 goal and 4 assists which was down on his first season of 3045 minutes scoring 155 points contributing 9 goals and 6 assists. If he gets an extended run in the team then hopefully he goes back to the way he was in his first season in the premier league. He is in less than 1% of teams. He is a quality player and I hope he improves by double this season, make sure he is on your watch list for and can possibly be in your Gameweek 8 team and beyond. 

Declan Rice (5.0): He played every single minute for West Ham last season scoring 105 points contributing 1 goal and 5 assists while being involved in the 7 cleansheets West Ham kept last season. Definitely has improved from his previous season and I believe he can do the same again this season. Currently in 5.0% of teams and I believe this might increase especially after Gameweek 7. 

Manuel Lanzini (6.5): Unfortunately Lanzini has fallen a bit out of favour at West Ham, he only scored 50 points from 1370 points providing only 3 assists. From his 1370 minutes he started 14 times and was substituted on 10 times. He also was part of the matchday squad sitting on the bench for 8 games. He missed 5 games due to injury. He completed the full 90 minutes on only 6 occasions. Hopefully he can get himself into the team and repeat the scoring he did back in 2015-2018 by being consistently over 100 points. 

Tomas Soucek (5.0): He was one of my first picks in my initial team, but since then might find himself out of my team due to now being in quarantine after being in close contact to a representative from the Czech National Team. Slavia Prague loaned Soucek out to West Ham during the Winter Transfer Window, now West Ham have bought him for 12m. During his time at West Ham he scored 41 points from 1039 minutes contributing 3 goals and being involved in 1 clean sheet. Before he went on loan to West Ham he played 17 games for Slavia Prague scoring 8 goals and providing 3 assists. He also gained some very valuable Champions League experience by playing every group game scoring 2 goals. If he can get somehow be released from quarantine then maybe he will make it into West Ham’s first matchday squad. I still reckon we should avoid any West Ham player till at least game week 8. He is currently in 8.8% of teams.  

Pablo Fornals (6.0): Fornals lead West Ham’s assists last season with 7. He played 2167 minutes last season scoring 93 points contributing as mentioned before 7 assists and scoring 2 goals. This season might see him break the 115 point barrier and become a good midfielder for West Ham. At 6.0m I believe there are better players with better scoring output and potential.

Robert Snodgrass (6.0): He only played 1500 minutes last season scoring his coaches 87 points. In those 87 points he scored 5 goals and produced 5 assists. He was involved in 28 of West Ham’s 38 games, he started in 17 and came off the bench 7 other times. He completed the full 90 eight times. If he can play over 2200 minutes then possibly we can see him get over 120 points with 15 goal contributions for the season. In his Premier League career when he plays over 2500 minutes he scores over 100 points. Definitely consider him after game week 8.

Forwards:

Michail Antonio (6.5): Antonio was a midfielder last season but this season he is a forward, this might turn a few people off him but he is currently in 14.2% of teams. If I’m being honest with West Ham’s start I honestly reckon a lot of people are selecting due to the fact he scored well to end the Season, he scored 4 goals in one game. But before that he had only scored 6 goals. However he scored 111 points from only 1767 minutes. He provided 4 assists too. If he can nab a couple of goals during West Ham’s terrible opening fixtures then there is justification for him having a 14% ownership. He will be on radar for the Gameweek after Liverpool play West Ham. 

Sebastian Haller (6.5): His first season in the premier league went okay I reckon, he scored 102 points contributing 7 goals and 3 assists. He came from Frankfurt last season, in his last season with Frankfurt he scored 15 goals and contributed 9 assists from 29 games. If he can find some of that form and link up really well with Antonio then we might see him hit 140+ if West Ham find their form of a few seasons ago when they were close to playing European football. 

As mentioned before I wouldn’t be starting any of West Ham’s defenders or goalkeepers, even on your bench. They have some very tough games to start their campaign. Consider any of the above players after the Liverpool game in Gameweek 7.