Blogs

West Ham Star Holds His Hands Up to the FPL Masses

It’s safe to say that Fantasy Premier League has not gone to plan this season. No, I’m not just talking about myself (although you don’t want to know where I stand in the Football Park League), but to the masses as a whole.

Anyone who captains Erling Haaland each and every week, this doesn’t apply to you, and quite frankly, you should go and do something a little bit more inventive with your time.

To those of you who are shepherds and not sheep, thank you for staying. You will agree with me when I say it has been incredibly hard to find a consistent form of points, particularly when all the usual suspects, such as Salah, Palmer, and anyone playing against Tottenham, are either out injured, underperforming, or struggling more so than last campaign.

A GW from hell pic.twitter.com/AcJFU1YPY5
— Troll Fantasy Football (@FPL_Trolls) November 9, 2025

So when West Ham fans, and anyone with Jarrod Bowen in their FPL team, saw the forward in the vicinity of an obvious tap-in in the 87th minute, they would have felt an overwhelming sense of relief that finally, one of their assets was going to come through for them.

Kyle Walk-in Peters

However, relief quickly turned to horror as another claret and blue shirt raced towards the ball spilt by Burnley goalkeeper Martin Dubravka - right-back Kyle Walker-Peters, who tactically should have been nowhere near the six-yard box, effectively found himself in a foot race with Bowen.

Needless to say, Walker-Peters got there first and tapped home, with both him and Bowen tumbling into the back of the net in the aftermath. The right-back's initial reaction was one of pure joy - it was his first goal for the club since signing from Southampton in the summer, and fair play to him, he enjoyed his moment.

All Jarrod Bowen FPL owners are angry at Kyle Walker-Peters today 😂pic.twitter.com/3mqL94xFJ6
— Bet9ja: The home of #betBOOM! 💣 (@Bet9jaOfficial) November 9, 2025

But of course, anyone with Jarrod Bowen in their fantasy team, particularly with a big old captain's armband next to his name, was understandably fuming. Walker-Peters had just deprived them of some precious points, and given that the average score for the gameweek was just 38 points, more than a few players would have been a bit miffed at the defender’s goal-hungry antics. Almost 1 million, to be exact.

Kyle Walker-Peters apologising to the 995,290 managers who selected Jarrod Bowen in Gameweek 11 😅

He just beat him to the ball to finish an easy goal 😭 pic.twitter.com/k9Ip9hdPlH
— Fantasy Premier League (@OfficialFPL) November 10, 2025

Walker-Peters recognised this and quickly addressed it, posting a story on Sunday that simply said, “Sorry to all the FPL Bowen owners!”

You can’t criticise him for being tone-deaf, that’s for sure, and his apology would abate some of the tongue-in-cheek rage directed at him.

However, make sure not to pull any more stunts like that again, Kyle, because we’ll all be watching closely!

Walker-Peters has been one of West Ham’s more solid performers in what has been a dire start to the campaign, notching one assist and now, annoyingly, one goal as well. Competing with Aaron Wan-Bissaka for the right-back role, the former Saint’s man has had to be patient and wait for his opportunity, but the signs are that he is starting to understand his role under Nuno Espirito Santo.

The outlook for Bowen is looking slightly bleaker - he has failed to find the net in any of West Ham’s last five games, and for a player who has notched 34 goals and 18 assists in the last two seasons, a tally of three and two, respectively, is not a good return for the England wideman.

He will be praying for another tap-in to fall his way as he looks to break his duck, and next time, he will make sure to check his shoulder for a team mate before he finds the net!