Share This Post

Latest Articles / New Fantasy Premier League Transfers 2017/18

New Fantasy Premier League Transfers 2017/18 West Ham

By inittowinit on 602 Comments
New Fantasy Premier League Transfers 2017/18 West Ham

New Fantasy Premier League Transfers 2017/18 West Ham

Hello and welcome to New Fantasy Premier League Transfers 2017/18 West Ham. West Ham struggled for the most part last season and at one stage looked like they may get dragged into the relegation mire, with boss Bilic under severe scrutiny. Both he and them weathered the storm though and came out with a fairly respectable 11th place finish and they even managed to beat Spurs in their Cup Final. They’ve made a few relatively small but maybe shrewd moves in the transfer window so far, most notably bringing in Joe Hart, Pablo Zabaleta, Marko Arnautovic and Javier Hernandez. I shall take a brief look at all four and their relative FPL prospects. I should preface it all by saying that I really don’t rate at least 2 of them as players though, so the bias police beware! I’ll also preface it with a mention of their opening fixtures. They play the first 3 away from home due to the World Athletic Championships being held at their ground. The stadium ‘gift’ that just keeps on giving then… As a group of opening fixtures though they aren’t actually that bad. Away at Man United first game isn’t ideal and probably promises little in terms of either attack or defence points if we are being brutally honest but beyond that they visit Saints, Newcastle and West Brom, face Huddersfield at home amongst that lot and then have their aforementioned ‘Cup Final’ early this time with Spurs at home in GW6. Yeah it’s not the best but also could be worse. Onto the new signings…

Joe Hart
Position: Goalkeeper (in theory)
FPL Price: £4.5m

“We didn’t expect so many mistakes from Joe Hart”… That was the damning verdict from the Torino president himself. Probably didn’t watch the Euros prior to loaning him then did you Mr Cairo?! He did concede that Hart “did some good things too”. Bless. Look, I’ll be honest here – I like Hart as a person, he seems like a really good lad and he’s always been honest in his interviews – be that about himself most recently or even back in his good old City days when he occasionally ripped into the team. As a keeper though I think he’s damaged goods. The Euros was horrendous for him, it was the last thing he needed with Pep just incoming and seeing his supposed number 1 exposed, and he’s never really recovered since. Pep was brutal and ruthless in both his assessment and subsequent disposing of him. Less so in buying two clowns to replace him but that’s another story!

Can he recover though? He’s joining a team who conceded 64 goals last season – only 5 teams conceded more and 2 of those got relegated. They only kept a clean sheet in 26% of their games so it could well be a case of chasing save points with Hart really. Which brings me back to the Euros again funnily enough, not his strongest suit anymore…!

At a surprisingly budget friendly £4.5m though he could well be a rotation option if you can find the right partner for him…

If you are as of yet unfamiliar with the above picture then go and check out the Fixture Trackers again as we have added in some new features which show the best rotation partnerships for defences for the first 10 GW’s.

Pablo Zabaleta
Position: Defender
FPL Price: £5.0m

I won’t go on about Pablo too much as you should all be familiar with him from his many years at Man City. If you somehow aren’t then basically he’s a much liked attacking full-back who will grab the odd goal and probably a few assists along the way, maybe less so now that he is at West Ham as opposed to a very attacking unit like City. He’s also £0.5m more than Hart so if you feel the need for a West Ham defender then that difference probably won’t be worth the stretch. Oh, and he’s about 55 years old now…

Marko Arnautovic
Position: Midfielder
FPL Price: £7.0m

Does anyone else have that player who they always meant to own but never quite got around to it? And then every time they did anything it felt like a small dagger in the back! That’s what Arnie is to me. It’s a very small and very infrequent dagger fortunately but it still niggles! I liked Arnie when he first came into our FPL lives back in 2013 and he had a hand in 14 goals in 30 games that season so the dagger was fairly consistent at first! He was dirt cheap back then too, I’m not sure exactly how cheap but £5.0m springs to mind. He was still relatively cheap 2 seasons ago when he managed 11 goals and 6 assists, probably £6.0m at that point. Fast forward a few years and he’s now a solid mid-priced midfielder at £7.0m so that ‘value’ pick has gone. The trouble with the move to West Ham is that any set-piece threat may have gone too, as they are already full of such specialists, but that will have to be monitored. Take him back a million or so and I’d be sort of interested, but at his current price he has too many alternatives to be considered for me, and that’s just within his own team, never mind amongst the rest of the teams!

Javier Hernandez
Position: Forward
FPL Price: £7.0m

“Ex-Real Madrid superstar signs for West Ham”

There’s so much wrong with this quote that I don’t even know where to begin!

“Like a puppy with a beach ball”

So let’s start with this one instead! It was a random comment, not even on an article, not even in relation to Chicharito himself. And yet it became a bit of a tag line as a certain Steven Naismith grew a cult following on here. I quote it now as I have the same feeling about the pair in relation to their first touch! Now granted, I haven’t seen that much of Javier since he left these shores a few years back so maybe he’s honed his skills and is now a more rounded player. I can only hope so for West Ham’s sake otherwise they are putting a lot of faith in a football CV that really defies belief when you see the actual player behind it. I can understand him ending up at Man United as he scored a shed load of goals at Guadalajara and looked like the perfect poacher. When he got there though he looked like a fish out of water whenever asked to do anything outside of the six yard box! Quite how Real Madrid then decided he was good enough for them is beyond me.

Anyway, he since left there and went to Bayer Leverkusen and did what he does best which is score goals. He got 28 goals in 54 games for them. I can’t comment on whether his general play has improved but that won’t be what he will be judged on in FPL terms next season, it’ll be goals and assists and he should be able to provide a good few goals at least and may well be great value given that he has been more than reasonably priced at just £7.0m. Or maybe it’s just that FPL towers remember him how I do!

Thanks for reading New Fantasy Premier League Transfers 2017/18 West Ham. This article was written by Inittowinit


The Fixture Tracker…

The main public FF247 League , which anyone is welcome to join, can be accessed using the following code 1503-553 (auto-link below).

Join Our League – Quick Link
League Code: 1503-553
View league standings
Our Regulars League for 2017/18 is now open and has a cash prize pool of £300
To enter this one you need to be an active and recognised site member and you need to e-mail us for the league code – Elleffcee@fantasyfootball247.co.uk *terms and conditions apply and are available upon request.

Share This Post

602 Comments

  1. Gents

    Think I’m nearly there with my team, which do you prefer?

    • Team two for me Mitro but don’t like your bench but who needs one with that team , no Spurs would worry me 😉

      • Silvers

        I understand your concern with my bench mate but I do the same every year (I can only play 11 at one time), I will build up some TV over the coming months and try to deal with that before th xmas period.

        I have trippier but I will WC just in time for the Burnley game and get in Kane if he’s firing!

        • Bench is quality Rangel is the new Amat!

        • That’s bench value too and I hate it!

        • Yes Mitro a lot of top players do this I thk Raz uses a similar tactic & it’s a good one 😉

        • Mitro, did you do this last season with the bench to begin with? And how did that work out, from memory you started well didn’t you? It’s not a tactic I’ve ever intentionally used, although have ended up doing it unintentionally but with players at 0.5 more who’ve then lost their place! It’s something I’ve thought about doing this time so some reassurance that it’s worked well in the past would be good.

        • I’ve done it for the past 4 seasons mate and every year before the season starts it gets flagged up on all my RMT and as you know I do quite a few of them smile

        • Yeah, but does it work? smile

        • There’s a reason why his page doesn’t link to his own :hippo:

        • I’ll update my link

        • Haha I was only messing – I need to change mine.

          Very impressive ranks!

        • Mitro I know your history, I’m not interested in that, I need to know if it works as an opening strategy! smile

        • You’d flaunt it if you had it, Init 😉

        • I do AT laugh

          Trouble with mine is that if you showed my rank at Christmas it’d look bloody woeful! Hence my question smile

        • Oh man, you both have crazy good for me. I stop caring if I have a woeful score at Christmas!

        • Form, not for me

        • Init, I think we both know that where you’re ranked at xmas counts for nothing smile

        • Yeah I know but I need a better start Kop. I’m like Bolt doing the 100m, I’m always losing come the 50 mark!

        • I’ve adopted a similar strategy for the past number of seasons. It’s unlikely to change this season 😉

    • Think I prefer the first one but most will likely go for the 2nd!
      Are you not concerned by lack of spurs and no bench defenders? ( just playing devils advocate!)

      • Rosco

        I am leaning towards the first team but salah’s preseason form has got me thinking… i know it’s preseason but he has looked good!

        I have trippier 😉

        Don’t worry about the bench mate

    • I’m big on Salah so I prefer team 2 Mitro.

      Which way are you inclined? 😉

    • I’ll expand on that by saying I prefer Salah over Firmino ( salah is in my team but I do rate Firmino) but I just don’t know if Austin will get the nod over Gabbi and he hasn’t really performed consistently in the prem for a good few seasons

      • Surely Gabbi is nailed as forward right? He’s in my team at the moment

      • Rosco

        Austin did really well last season until he got injured and he knows how to put a pen away not like gashadini 😉

    • I prefer the second team. Still not sold on Firmino. Austin is a slight risk. I like Aguero and the double City. I’ve not seen Aguero in many teams. Brave going without Spurs but hey there is the stadium cloud

    • Hi Mitro – any concerns re Aguero gametime from the off?

      • Dreamers

        I think he’s nailed on to start, do you think pep will tinker and bench him?

    • Some good ranks there Mitro & Init if I could find my original log in form the days of the telegraph news paper & fantasy football cheat I could put them up there but you know what I’m like 😉

      • Silly us, I lost the record of all my top ten finishes too smile

        • Don’t worry AT my last 4 yrs on my new log in two top 5k finishish & two in 50k which is ok I thk 😉

        • I’ve only taken one season seriously and finished around 20k, so better than me!

        • It’s hard for me to keep track sometimes At I often miss transfers as I’m out & about to much but it’s only a game really smile

        • And drink a lot of alcohol. :big-lol:

  2. Out of the top 6 who will score the most goals in what order?
    Chelsea
    City
    United
    Liverpool
    Spurs
    Arsenal

    • City
      Spurs
      Pool
      Ars
      Che
      Mut

    • I’ll put my neck on the line: City, Spurs, Pool, Arsenal, Chelsea, United

      • Snap 😉

      • I’m not sure re Chelsea. Looks like Morata not fit enough? So will Bat start? Arsenal will take bedding in. Liverpool might start well whereas Arsenal may struggle.

        Rather than the season, the start might be
        City, Pool, United, Spurs, Chelsea , Arsenal

    • Interesting I’d swap Chelsea with Arsenal but that’s how I see it. Also after that now I’m tempted to ditch Lukaku

      • I did put that. Depends on Sanchez I think.

        • I really thought Arsenal would be busy in the transfer market but it’s same old story

      • Could do with more chipping in on this come on guys roll up roll up what do we thk 😉

        • City, Pool (if coutinho stays), Spurs, Chelsea, United, Arsenal

        • City
          Spurs
          Liverpool
          Chelsea
          Man Utd
          Everton

    • IMO

      City
      Arsenal
      Liverpool
      Chelsea
      Spurs
      Utd

  3. Firminho takes the penalty even though Henderson is on the pitch

    • This is interesting. Henderson missed in shoot out as well. Milner may not play and Liverpool you would expect to get a fair amount of penalties with Mane and Salah

      • Very interesting 😉

        Just need Milner to get injured and it’s on!!

  4. Darmian playing on the left tonight for UTD. How nailed is he?

    • I’d say most likely rather than nailed

    • Can’t see them playing 3-back much if they concede against Sampdoria mind hahaha

      • I take that back – they were playing 4 when they conceded!

        Martial playing awesome AGAIN. Must play.

  5. Saints getting hammered at home!

  6. Evening all,

    What do you guys think of this ?

    The thing that concerns me is no Chelsea cover at the back. I can always down Willian to ince and use the 1.0 for foster to courtois.

    Cheers

    • Nice team! Not much to change there for me apart from maybe Bailly, think there is better options for 6m and although you would expect him to start most game Utd have so many options at CB there is always the risk of rotation before Champions league games etc.

      I don’t think Chelsea coverage at the back is essential with their opening fixtures so personally wouldnt worry too much on that.

    • I’d be happy to roll with that for now Hammers. You may need to do that switch anyway if Hazard returns and disrupts Willian but for now I’d stick.

      • Cheers guys

        Could always go Willian to ince then Bailey to alonso I suppose

    • Spurs attack is lacking.

Leave a Reply

Go to Latest CommentsView Now