Every week this season, two West Ham fans will compete at Fantasy Football to win money for their chosen charities.
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Every week this season, two West Ham fans will compete against each other to win money for a charity close to their hearts.
James Jones and Will Pugh from the ‘We Are West Ham’ podcast will go head-to-head by picking their Fantasy Football teams every week, making sure to select at least one player from West Ham.
Their points will be totted up every week, and the highest-scoring team at the end of the 38 Gameweeks will be declared the winner, with Betway donating £1,000 to their chosen charity.
Who will come out on top? Here’s who the Hammers fans have selected for Gameweek 6.
Will’s team
GK: Ederson
DF: Botman, Chilwell, Estupinan
MID: Mbeumo, Rashford, Saka, Sterling
FW: Haaland (C), Wissa, Joao Pedro
Forty points last week saw me concede seven points to James Jones, but the gulf between us was so vast beforehand I am still 11 points above him overall with my total of 310.
I was stung by my decision to leave Joao Pedro as a sub as his goal off the bench during Brighton’s 3-1 win at Manchester United saw him bag seven points while Bukayo Saka was the only one of my FIVE midfielders to land more than two points.
Pedro is an awkward one because he does not seem a guaranteed starter but his returns so far this season are great with four goal contributions in just 336 minutes of football.
He scored both goals in Thursday’s 3-2 home defeat to AEK Athens in the Europa League game and I reckon he is good for a return again this weekend.
Despite my desire to bring Mo Salah in to combat Jonesy’s only real source of points, I decided against any transfers this week. Salah’s Liverpool welcome high-flying West Ham and although the Egyptian has 12 goals contributions in 12 games against the Hammers, I reckon it will be a tight one at Anfield.
Sterling’s Chelsea welcome Aston Villa who had an away trip to Poland on Thursday, so I am going with the “If they’re ever going to score points it’s going to be this week” approach and gambling on their totals outweighing or at least equalling Salah’s leaving me two free transfers to play with next week.
Pedro comes in for Bowen who is an illness doubt and Pervis Estupinan replaces Destiny Udogie whose Tottenham team go to Arsenal so a clean sheet is unlikely.
Haaland captain and I fancy my super Brentford duo of Yoane Wissa and Bryan Mbuemo to bag me some more differential points against Everton who have leaked nine goals in five.
James’ team
GK: Flekken
DEF: Estupinan, Gvardiol, Saliba
MID: Saka, Mitoma, Salah, Sterling, Diaby
FW: Alvarez, Haaland (C)
I ended up playing with my head last week following my Sterling v Haaland captaincy dilemma, and it paid off. Sterling blanked against Bournemouth and Haaland scored one against West Ham. The problem for me is, the real captaincy choice was Mo Salah, who bagged two assists against Wolves.
It’s all good though because GW5 saw me claw back some ground on Will. I’m now only 11 points adrift of the bloke who thinks Fantasy Football is for children. There’s 33 gameweeks left for me to humiliate him in a game he thinks he’s too old for.
I’m getting close to playing my wildcard, to be honest, but it’s still too early to pull the trigger. Instead, my utter disgust in Nicolas Jackson’s lack of FPL points since I brought him in has led me to remove him, replacing him with the in-form Julian Alvarez.
Alvarez has registered attacking returns in four of his five appearances this season and is in devastating form alongside Erling Haaland in Man City’s attack. He has four assists and a goal in his last two Premier League outings and scored a brace in City’s Champions League win over Crvena Zvezda earlier this week. Normally, doubling up your attack with players from the same team would be seen as a risk but where these two players and Man City are concerned, it’s a no-brainer.
Elsewhere in the team, Mark Flekken comes back into the starting XI over Matt Turner. Brentford host struggling Everton while Forest travel to Man City, so that change doesn’t need much explanation.
The only other change to my starting XI is Josko Gvardiol coming in for Ben Chilwell. There are always questions marks over Man City defenders and their chances of starting games, and Gvardiol’s place in my squad is at serious risk as a result, but he starts over Chilwell this week purely due to fixtures. Chelsea host Aston Villa and unlike previous seasons, this game poses a real challenge for the Blues.
As always, Haaland takes the armband. There are no dilemmas surrounding my captaincy this week. Some might pick Alvarez as a differential, given the form he’s in. But with Haaland you’re almost guaranteed returns.
