40 Season Preview 2019-20 FourFourTwoPREMIER LEAGUE
2019-20
LAST SEASON
PREMIER LEAGUE 10th
FA CUP Fourth Round
LEAGUE CUP Fourth Round
TOP SCORER
Marko Arnautovic (11)West Ham had the makings of a very decent team
last season. Lukasz Fabianski was marvellous in
goal; a pair of centre-back gems were unearthed
in Fabian Balbuena and Issa Diop; and Felipe
Anderson, Michail Antonio and (sporadically) the
now-departed Marko Arnautovic provided goals and
a bit of flamboyance in attack. The missing piece
was a midfield schemer to unpick defiant defences.
Deep down, West Ham always knew Jack Wilshere
would spend most of the season injured. Sadly, so did
Manuel Lanzini. An exasperated Manuel Pellegrini has
signed a player to replace them both: Pablo Fornals.CAn PABLO FORnALS SUCCEED
WHERE JACK WILSHERE FAILED?
A conjurer of extraordinary assists, scorer of the
occasional worldie, and adept in positions across the
midfield, Fornals was at the heart of Spain’s triumph
in this summer’s European Under-21 Championship.
He’s actually 23, and a senior international, but even
so he’s played a startling amount of football in a short
time – over 150 appearances for Malaga and Villarreal
in La Liga, the Europa League and the Copa del Rey.
Hammers fans have high hopes that Fornals can be
the new Dimitri Payet, minus the walkouts. He already
ticks the bargain box: securing Payet’s services for
£10.7m was astonishing, and it’s similarly impressive
to snap up Fornals for £24m in a summer that’s seen
some baffling prices thrown around for midfielders(Newcastle valued Sean Longstaff at double that, for
a start). A meagre two goals and three assists in
La Liga last season seems to imply Fornals doesn’t hit
his YouTube-friendly heights consistently enough, but
the underlying numbers are far more positive – and
his first touch, passing and movement are sublime.
Fornals may be a bit small for the Premier League’s
roughhousing, but in Declan Rice he’ll have a midfield
partner providing protection. Then there’s Mark Noble,
who seems to have been tearing around West Ham’s
midfield, shouting at everyone and pulling off the
occasional Cruyff turn since the 1940s. Noble divides
opinion. Some supporters reckon his legs went three
years ago; others think he deserves a statue outside
the Thunderdome (as some call the London Stadium).
Noble, Rice and Fornals could be a midfield to propel
West Ham to the dizzying heights of 7th place. With
attacking waves provided by a rotating carousel picked
from Lanzini, Antonio, Anderson, Andriy Yarmolenko
and Grady Diangana, Pellegrini is seemingly trying to
build a budget Manchester City. To be honest, Irons
fans would probably take that.