This time last year we were coming to the end of a season which saw us fighting for survival, but despite challenging for Europe under Manuel Pellegrini, no West Ham player was included in the PFA Team of the Year.
No player from any of the London sides were included in the team, in fact, with the title-fighting duo of Manchester City and Liverpool locking out ten of the eleven spots. The only other inclusion, somehow, was Paul Pogba, who went missing for months before Jose Mourinho got sacked, came out the shadows to earn Ole Gunnar Solskjaer the Old Trafford job, and then disappeared once more.
We, on the other hand, have witnessed Declan Rice continue to excel in the Premier League and earn a maiden England call-up, Lukasz Fabianski show he is one of the bargains of the season, and Felipe Anderson adapt to life in England.
Every player plying their trade in the capital being snubbed, though, has led Football.London to make their own Team of the Year’s based purely on those at Arsenal, Chelsea, Crystal Palace, Fulham, Tottenham, and us.
Thankfully, from the reduced pool of talent to pick from, two Hammers stars earnt some much deserved praise, with Fabianski and Rice in almost each squad compiled.
Rice features the most of the pair, with a place in all but one of the ten sides – missing out on a clean sweep thanks to Ryan O’Donovan, one of their Football Writers, who opted for Calum Chambers.
He noted: “There’s a case to be made for Declan Rice, but as chairman of the Calum Chambers fan club and seeing him all season long at Fulham he takes the West Ham player’s place in my team.”
Fabianski, meanwhile, is in all but two of the squads, with their Editor-in-Chief opting for Arsenal’s Bernd Leno, and the clear joker of the pack Joe Doyle voting in favour of Petr Cech – the live blogger also included the error-prone Shkodran Mustafi.
On his woeful pick, Doyle claimed: “Football is a distraction from the everyday mundanities of life; it’s there to be enjoyed. And so my team is based on just that: players I’ve enjoyed watching this season.
“This can either be for standout campaigns – I’m looking at Aaron Wan-Bissaka and Shkodran Mustafi for two vastly differing reasons, but both inarguably standout – or moments of bliss like Andros Townsend delivering goal of the season with his volley against Manchester City and Petr Cech somehow contriving to nearly score an own goal and giving away a corner while attempting to play out from the back (he’s also retiring, so that’s nice).”
