West Ham United’s line-up for their trip to Anfield in Gameweek 1 will have a very different look to the side that sleepwalked to a 13th-place finish in 2017/18.
Summer signings Lukasz Fabianski (£4.5m), Issa Diop (£4.5m), Fabian Balbuena (£4.5m), Ryan Fredericks (£5.0m), Jack Wilshere (£5.0m), Andriy Yarmolenko (£7.0m) and Felipe Anderson (£7.0m) all have realistic chances of starting against Liverpool a week on Sunday, while new manager Manuel Pellegrini has ditched the three-man backline favoured by predecessor David Moyes in favour of an attacking 4-3-3.
West Ham were a team of contradictions last season; no side conceded more league goals than the Hammers, but only the clubs finishing in the top seven kept more clean sheets.
Similarly, while their total of 48 goals scored was the eighth-best in the division, their underlying attacking statistics were mostly unremarkable – more of which we will discuss later in this article.
A grim-looking opening run of fixtures in which the Hammers play five of the “big six” in the first nine Gameweeks will likely deter too much Fantasy investment in Pellegrini’s side, but in Marko Arnautovic (£7.0m) the east London club have a player bang in form and in high demand among Fantasy Premier League managers.
In-depth data on West Ham’s season is available in the Members’ Area, while Fantasy Football Scout members can also read our detailed analysis of the key statistics in the feature below.
Read more with Scout
Visit our PRE-SEASON PAGE to get the latest pointers from pre-season friendlies and read scout reports on new players by CLICKING HERE.
Pick your FPL team for 2018/19 using our list of best available players, sorted for your convenience by position and price:
Goalkeepers | Defenders: Budget | Defenders: Mid-Price and Premium | Midfielders: Budget | Midfielders: Mid-Price | Midfielders: Premium | Forwards: Budget
Also check out our detailed statistical analysis articles on every team comparing data for the last two seasons to highlight the players to sign and the players to avoid:
Arsenal | Bournemouth | Brighton & Hove Albion | Burnley | Cardiff City | Chelsea | Crystal Palace | Everton | Fulham | Huddersfield Town | Leicester City | Liverpool | Manchester City | Manchester United | Newcastle United | Southampton | Tottenham Hotspur | Watford
Become a Member and access our data
Memberships for the 2018/19 campaign are now available for the pre-season price of just £12.50. This will increase to the regular price of £15 after the first Gameweek of the season.
Join now to get the following:
- Plot your transfer strategies using the fully interactive Season Ticker.
- Get projections for every Premier League player provided by the Rate My Team statistical model.
- Use Rate My Team throughout the season to guide your selections and transfers.
- Get access to over 130+ exclusive members articles over the season.
- Analyse our OPTA-powered statistic tables specifically tailored for Fantasy Football Managers.
- Use our exclusive tool to build custom stats tables from over 100 OPTA player and team stats.
- View heatmaps and expected goals data for every player.
- Use our powerful comparison tool to analyse players head-to-head.
5 years, 9 months agoIf Zaha moves to Chelsea, will you get Wood instead?