West Ham United’s newest signing Gianluca Scamacca may prove to be a clever signing for Fantasy Premier League managers currently picking their teams for the new season.
The Hammers completed the signing of the 23-year-old Italian on Tuesday night for an undisclosed fee believed to be in the region of £30.5million, making him West Ham’s fourth signing of the summer transfer window after Alphonse Areola, Nayef Aguerd and Flynn Downes.
Scamacca’s arrival will put him in the popular online fantasy football game ran by the Premier League called Fantasy Premier League. In the game played worldwide by supporters and professional footballers alike, managers are given an £100m budget to spend the assemble a squad of 15 players, picking two goalkeepers, five defenders, five midfielders and three strikers.
READ MORE: David Moyes completes West Ham transfer mission with Gianluca Scamacca signing
The 23-year-old has put straight into the game ahead of the 2022/23 Premier League season that kicks off in nine days’ time and has been priced at £7m, a price that is pretty cheap compared to the rest of division’s top scorers.
Using their points total (not including bonus points) Scamacca would have been the sixth highest-point scoring forward last term with 117 points and would have provided great value to those who scored more than him. The five forwards who finished above Scamacca on points that did not include bonus points were Tottenham Hotspur’s Harry Kane (169), Liverpool’s Diogo Jota (167), Manchester United’s Cristiano Ronaldo (130, new Hammers team-mate Michail Antonio (126) and Ivan Toney (120).
However, Scamacca’s price of just £7m means that had he started last season with the same price tag and got the same number of fantasy points in Serie A as he would in this season’s Premier League, he would have averaged 16.7 points per each £1m he cost. In comparison, Ronaldo earned 10.4 points per million, Kane’s was 13.5, Toney’s was 18.5, Antonio’s was 16.8 and Jota’s was 22.3, making Scamacca much better in value for money than Ronaldo, Kane and Antonio.
Only three West Ham players earned more non-bonus points than Scamacca last term. Jarrod Bowen (182) was the Hammers’ top scorer and third top in the whole league for non-bonus points. Only joint-golden boot winners Mohamed Salah (236) and Son Heung-min (231) had more.
Closely behind Bowen on most points for West Ham without bonuses were Antonio (126) and Said Benrahma (123), with Scamacca’s 117 putting him above the rest.
With a low FPL transfer value and a high number of points (if last season’s form counted), if Scamacca is used up front ahead of Antonio next season, he may be too good to ignore. Not only could he produce a high points total, but he could also do it without having to take up a big portion of your transfer budget.
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