New Signings – Fantasy Premier League 2016/17. West Ham
What a difference a year makes! Roughly 12 months ago, some bozo on here was ribbing this lot to the max, predicting a rough season and possible relegation due to the appointment of “woeful” Slaven Bilic as head honcho in replacement of the ever sturdy Sam Allardyce. An unknown French dude was supposedly the key to Hammers success but this bozo just didn’t believe it. Who was this character, you ask? None of your goddamn business, that’s who. Now, moving swiftly on; West Ham have been quite busy in the current window, snapping up some very interesting players, 4 of which we’ll cover in this here article. Two youth prospects (Domingos Quina & Toni Martinez) aren’t really expected to break into what is fast becoming a stacked Hammers team but they are worth a mention nonetheless. Quina, a 16 year old Portuguese attacking midfielder, has been highly touted as one for the future and West Ham have done well to nip in and take him on board. Martinez, slightly older at 19, was snapped up from the Valencia youth and is again seen as one for the future. Like Quina, he’s not expected to get much if any game time this season but as fantasy managers we’d be doing ourselves a service to keep an eye on the progression of Martinez and Quina as we may well be punting on them in a season or two. With those two now out of the way, lets have a peek at the Hammers signings that are more relevant to the upcoming fantasy season, shall we?…
For West Ham’s pre-season games, line-ups and general musings here is their link on the Pre-season hub we have created West Ham Pre-season info
Håvard Nordtveit – Defensive Midfielder / Center Back (£5.0m) Classed as a mid in FPL
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Signed from German outfit Gladbach, this defensive minded Norweigan has seemingly been drafted in to help plug the holes in a Hammers defence that was pretty porous at times last season. Despite playing an attractive, attacking style of football and finishing a more than respectable 7th, West Ham ranked 8th from the top 10 in terms of goals conceded – shipping a hefty 51 times over the course of the season. A reduction of 10 or so goals may have resulted in a top 4 finish, what with there being just a four point gap between themselves and Manchester City. Considering this, it’s not surprising that Bilic went after a solid member of a rather impressive Gladbach team and we’d expect Nordveit to do a job for the Hammers. Looking at his attacking stats there’s not a whole lot to whet the appetite, fantasy wise. Nordveit spent a full six seasons at Gladbach but only managed to find the net on 13 occasions and contributed few assists, making him an unattractive pick for us fantasy folk. It’s worth noting that he has been classed as a midfielder in FPL. We all know the value of an out-of-position gem in the game we love / hate so much so had he been classed as a defender then those goal scoring stats wouldn’t look all that bad really; 4 last season and 3 the season before. Decent, but only if there were clean sheet points to go along with the odd goal, which there isn’t!
Fantasy Prospect; 4/10
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Gökhan Töre – Winger / Attacking Midfielder (£5.5m)
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Now, onto the attacking side of things and first up we’ve got a loanee drafted in from Turkish side, Besiktas, a club most of you will know from their appearances in the Champions League down the years. The Hammers have dished out £2.5mln to bring Töre in for the season with a view to making the deal permanent next summer for a further £7.5mln should he do the business. The Turkish international (26 caps, 0 goals) started out as a professional in Germany with Hamburg, making 24 appearances before moving on to the Russian league of all places to ply his trade for Rubin Kazan. That venture didn’t go all that well for Gökhan and he was soon out of there, signing for Be?ikta? in 2013. During his three seasons in Turkey, Töre saw plenty of game time, making 111 appearances in total and finding the net 19 times; far from a spectacular return we think you’ll agree. Add 28 assists to that tally and we’re starting to look decent but we’d have to think that Töre will need to up his game considerably if he is to be effective in the Premier League. At just 24 years of age there is certainly time for improvement and it will be interesting to see if he gets into the starting 11 from the off but one thing is for sure; West Ham have a few players that could easily force Töre to sit out most games unless he hits the ground running. One to keep an eye on for sure.
Fantasy Prospect; 6/10
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Manuel Lanzini – Attacking Midfielder (£6.5m)
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Here’s a name we should all know from last season as he was on loan at the Hammers, and has now been added to the permanent squad for the upcoming season. Lanzini started the season off rather quietly, appearing here and there and not really showing much of anything. That was, until playmaker Dimitri Payet was ruled out for a couple of months through injury. Young Manuel burst into life in the absence of Payet and proceeded to become a heavily fancied fantasy option, scoring and assisting regularly before he himself picked up an injury that kept him out for a while. It seemed that by the time Lanzini was available again, West Ham had switched up their formation and he took time to settle back in but an okay tally of 6 league goals from 25 appearances may be a sign of what is to come from the young Argentine. How this talent ended up playing in the UAE Arabian Gulf League is anyone’s guess but now that he is on board at West Ham we’d be foolish to overlook what will likely be a much cheaper alternative to Payet, although maybe not quite as productive, but we shall see. At just 23 Manuel Lanzini has a bright future ahead of him and once he can nail a starting spot we’d expect him to continue to do well. The main drawback is the fact he is off to the Olympics with Argentina so he may not be available for the season start. Keep an eye on that one.
Fantasy Prospect; 7/10
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Sofiane Feghouli – Winger / Attacking Midfielder (£5.5m)
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Last, but most certainly not least, a player who has been making waves for a number of seasons in La Liga for Valencia; Sofiane Feghouli has been and still is an excellent player and is currently West Ham’s most exciting summer signing by far. Four seasons at Grenoble was enough time for Los Murciélagos to realise his talents and snap him up, and there he has stayed, bar a brief loan spell at Almeria, steadily improving as the seasons go by. Deployed mainly as a wide player, although at times shifted to a central attacking role or even the odd time as a central midfielder, Feghouli has almost always done what was asked of him to a high level and we’re expecting him to continue improving in a more free flowing attacking West Ham team. Work rate is the first noticeable trait in Feghouli. The Algerian has no issues with helping out on the defensive side as well as providing a skillful outlet at the other end of the field. 31 goals in five seasons at Valencia, a club who are almost always chopping and changing due to financial issues, is a decent return, considering. Feghouli is a good creator also, ticking another box for us fantasy managers. At international level, Feghouli is second only to the mercurial Riyad Mahrez in terms of importance to the team and even that is debatable. 11 goals in 40 appearances for Algeria is an excellent return, we think you’ll agree. All in all there’s no real downside to this signing and once priced reasonably he could well be one of the gems of the upcoming FPL season. Of that there is no doubt, even less so if the Hammers manage to snag one of the top strikers they are currently trying to sign. Watch this space people, Sofiane is an excellent player and should suit the fast pace of EPL.
Fantasy Prospect; 8/10
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Fixture Tracker – the first 6 games
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Great write up NIN couple of interesting cheap MF players to look @ Ps I might have found a loop hole in are bet watch this space :smiling:
Silvers that youth keeper isn’t going to play up front in the PL so you can forget that one mate
Init my bet was to Cap a Def that’s all I’m saying it just popped into my head last night 😉
You forgot who it was though didn’t you
My night shift buddy it will have him thinking
You’ve got to pick a defender, end of! A bet is a bet and I intend to implement it, ruthlessly :hippo:
Hey NIN yes I will pick a def as my Cap a bet is a bet but I have found a loop hole :smiling: I will say no more.
Captain a 4.0M defender that wont play and have a good attacking option as your VC?
oh yes. I’m onto you. :hippo:
That’s no hassle, it’ll just move on to gw2 in that case. No getting out of this one mate. Fucking no chance :hippo:
Hey Chins don’t give the game away NIN might be reading :smiling:
Am I the only one who’s annoyed by Liverpool’s transfer activity this morning? Selling Allen for only 13 Mil yet Ibe went for 15!! Buying Wiljnaldum for 25?? And possibly selling Jon Flanagan to Burnley as well? Liverpool just love to throw money at Newcastle.
Matt, Allen only has 12 months left on his contract and as far as I know Flanagan is only going on loan.
I thought Allen was determined to sign a new one though and Liverpool just weren’t offering him one? Oh right I had read that but then I read somewhere elsewhere that the move was going to be permanent. Unless it is a loan deal with an option of making it permanent?
Allen wants first team football and that’s unlikely to happen at Liverpool this season.
Yeah that’s true. I was just looking at the Liverpool team and even though we may have a great midfield and attack. I don’t think we can touch them in FPL because I don’t know who starts and I think rotation will be rife throughout the season.
Do you Liverpool lads really believe Firmino will be rotated?
Cook it’s Klopp nobody can read his mind. He did play our youth team keeper upfront yesterday!!
I don’t believe there’ll be a significant amount of rotation as there’ll be no need for it. Once Klopp settles on an XI I suspect he’ll stick to it more often than not.
Thats true I guess. Do you think Henderson will be captain this year or will it be someone else?
That’s what I would have thought Kop, but the way he is buying attacking mids, you’d think he still believes you’re playing in Europe!
Mane, Coutinho, Firmino,, La Llama, Henderson, Milner, Wiji, Origi, Sturridge, Ings – there’s going to be some pretty unhappy big names there.
I’m hoping the attack will be this
Can Grujic
Mane Firmino Couthino
Sturridge(till he gets injured then Origi)
It will certainly be a test of Klopp’s man mgt skills.
Oh god yeah. Did he have this many players when at Dortmund? I know he was saying that he has too many players but all he seems to be doing is bringing in more and more midfielders.
Maybe he’s just given up with the defence and will play 0-7-2 ?
Haha may aswell I think that was the formation for most of last year aswell with the odd Sakho interception.
Has Negredo been added to the site yet and if so how much is he? Can’t get to my laptop at the moment.
Not added yet Matt – think the deal was only confirmed last evening.
Ah right I thought it was around 6 yesterday. Any thoughts on what he’ll be priced at? I’m hoping less than 7 Mil. 6mil would be great
Dunno Matt, but relax, all will be revealed in good time, my anxious friend!
Haha yeah its just annoying that I can’t log in and fiddle with the team on my phone so I just keep trying to make a team in my head but not knowing the prices off the top of my head makes it harder. Haha
Manchester United have now SEALED a world-record £100million deal to sign Paul Pogba
What’s the source for this Silvers?
Nothing confirmed at all…….
They have it has a done deal at silverssports.com
Cookie do me a favour and try the link below does it work
Silvers, the only link I see below is your one to Colonial for FPL, which works.
I can’t see anything defo on Pogba – it seems like the deal is close, but not yet complete. Some “sources” will obviously try and be the first to claim it has been agreed, which is what I think some are seeing.
Sky sports
Manchester United have now SEALED a world-record £100million deal to sign Paul Pogba .
They have agreed to pay Juventus the massive fee for their France superstar and will hand Pogba a five-year contract worth £210,000-a-week, net.
The Old Trafford giants ‘ executive vice-chairman Ed Woodward agreed the deal with Juve directors Giuseppe Marotta and Fabio Paratici, as well as the player’s agent Mino Raiola
Hi guys – is Fantasy Premier League up and running? I cannot get a RESPONSE when trying to sign in and at the page end under Fantasy it says ‘coming’ . Please enlighten me and if need b, is it is open ,e a LINK would be appreciated. Thanks
Link below
https://fantasy.premierleague.com/
You may need to clear your cache as it sounds like it’s loading up old / archived info.
Speak to Cookie…he’s our expert when it comes to clearing a cache!
:cuss:
I thk this will make a massive difference to UTD although I wont consider Pogba he his a driving force both in def and attack this should bold well for Ibra & UTD def 😉