Coventry City FPL: Who To Own, Captain And Avoid

Coventry: buy the back, ignore the front

Our model ranks Coventry's attack dead last in the league — 20th of 20 — and hands them Brighton, Newcastle and a trip to Spurs in the next six. So if you're eyeing anyone in a sky-blue shirt who plays in the final third, put the mouse down. There are no goals coming here, and the fixture list agrees.

But flip to the other end and the picture changes completely. The defence sits mid-table — tenth-meanest in our projections — and the run is genuinely kind for clean sheets. Nottingham Forest away, Fulham and Sunderland at home: those are games a well-drilled promoted side keeps shut. That's the whole Coventry story this season in one sentence: nothing to buy up front, real value at the back.

And it's proper value. Bobby Thomas tops our list at £4.0m — the absolute floor of the price bracket — nailed, started all three so far, and projected for a tidy return over the six. That's what a bench slot should look like: a bloke who plays every week, at a price that funds a premium elsewhere. Van Ewijk is the same package a shade behind, and already sits in more squads at about 1 in 10 — Thomas is the one our model prefers and hardly anyone's noticed him yet at under 1 in 10. Rushworth at £4.5m is the same logic in gloves: nailed, starting, and owned by roughly nobody.

The honest caveat: these are floor picks, not haul merchants. A £4.0m centre-half at a side with the league's bluntest attack isn't going massive — you're buying two points on a bad week, six on a good one, and the odd bonus when the clean sheet lands. The Brighton, Newcastle and Spurs games will hurt; the value is in the other three and in the price, not the ceiling. Three starts is also still three starts — a small sample, and if Thomas loses his place the whole case collapses. He hasn't yet, and our model thinks he won't.

Skip Awoniyi and the midfield entirely — nobody attached to this attack earns his price, whatever set pieces he's on.

The call: buy Bobby Thomas at £4.0m as your first bench defender — starts every week, never wastes the slot, and pays for the captain at the other end of your team. Start him in the Fulham and Sunderland home games; bench him for Spurs away. That's what four million is for.