A poor match week 8 at Brighton had me cringing and reeling when looking at Sam Tighe‘s week by week top 100 players by position power rankings for Bleacher Report, and I was right, it ain’t pretty for the Irons.
The Bleacher Report weekly ranking, EPL100 can be seen here. It ranks the best players by positions after each week, taking into consideration their performances from the week that was, and the form they have strung together over the past few matches.
Let’s get into the Iron’s rankings:
Lukasz Fabianski 4 (-1)
West Ham fans will tell everyone that Fabianski is the best goalkeeper signed this offseason by any club in the Premier League. His saves suggest this, too as he now sits alone atop the Premier League stats rankings with 36 saves on the season.
He did just about everything he could in his last match against Brighton, but when your club loses 1-0 to Brighton the optics aren’t great. Fabianski’s ranking drop was just a ricochet shot from the underwhelming performance of his team at Brighton, expect him to stay near the top of this list.
Pablo Zabaleta 6 (stay)
Peculiar one here for Zabaleta. It’s good to see him getting his due as a starting Premier League defender who has helped stabilize his team, allowing them to push forward, but I’m not so sure about this stay on his 6th ranking.
The Brighton match had one goal in it and it was created by Beram Kayal and finished by Glenn Murray in typical fashion. The assist came from Zabaleta’s side as he was too far extended up the pitch. This pulled both Fabian Balbuena and Issa Diop to cover other players in the box and left Murray to Masuaku who cannot defend. Zabaleta kinda caused that goal but has avoided a rankings drop.
Issa Diop unranked (-1)
The only West Ham centre-back to make an appearance on this list has dropped out of the top-20 for central defenders after the loss to Brighton. Diop has been great since that Arsenal match that saw him score an own-goal, and this match really didn’t see him underperform.
As mentioned above Diop was pulled off of covering Murray with the open field that Zabaleta left available after he was caught up the pitch, so it’s hard to hang this one on him. More than likely Diop got passed by players who earned ranking bumps rather than him deserving to be dropped, at least that’s what I’ll tell myself.
Declan Rice 12 (-3)
Is there a greater unsung position than the defensive midfielder? With this role, Rice and many of his defensive midfield compatriots see their perceived effectiveness rise and fall with team success. So, West Ham loses and so does Rice.
On the contrary, Rice had a pretty great game. Rice was third in touches for a midfielder behind Anderson (82) and Noble (69) with 67. He also was also second in passes in the match for West Ham with 60, behind Noble with 62. Despite these numbers, he dropped three spots which probably isn’t justified.
Felipe Anderson 17 (-5)
Time to rank the flashy players with attacking midfielders/ wingers! And nothing says volatile like power ranking players who are technically forwards, especially when you’re focused on one player in particular like Felipe Anderson who didn’t score. All that being said, I get the drop in his ranking. Anderson should have eaten Brighton alive this week but missed his opportunity.
That would certainly account for a few position drop, but the rest come from drastic ranking boosts for three players: Gylfi Sigurdsson +5, Andre Schurrle +6, and David Brooks +12. Anderson will get back to a respectable ranking, but for now, he’s hanging on by a thread in the AM/W top-20.
Marko Arnautovic 8 (-4)
A four space drop seems like a lot but, whew is it justified for Marko Arnautovic. He had a mare against Brighton, which for him means he was all around the net and was still bullying defenders but just couldn’t buy a goal in the match. He wasn’t pocketed by any means, but Lewis Dunk and Shane Duffy certainly pressured him the whole match.
The good news for Arnautovic is that he’ll probably use this as motivation to ignite his 2018/19 season to new levels. Tottenham are up for Marko and the Hammers when the international break is over; nothing like a London Derby to get your goal scoring back on track!