Coventry City FPL: Who To Own, Captain And Avoid

Coventry: buy the back, ignore the front

Our model has Coventry down as the bluntest attack in the league — dead last, all twenty teams — and yet there's genuine money to be made here. Because the same model rates their defence comfortably top-half, and the fixtures about to land on them are about as kind as a clean-sheet hunter could ask for.

That's the whole Coventry story in one sentence: the value sits at the wrong end of the pitch from where most managers look. Nobody is buying a Coventry forward — Thomas-Asante has started twice and that tells you everything — and the midfielders are honest £4.9m bodies, not points machines. But the defence? Fulham, Sunderland and Crystal Palace all come to the Coventry Building Society Arena in this run, with an Everton away trip that's hardly terrifying. For a newly promoted side, that's a gift.

Bobby Thomas is the way in. £4.0m, started every week, and he tops our projections for the club over the next six — the model has him clearing the usual budget-defender bar comfortably, with the odd bonus-heavy week in him when the clean sheets land. Not quite 1 in 10 managers own him, so he's template-adjacent without being everywhere. Jay Dasilva is the same price, also nailed, and almost nobody has him if you need a second route in. Rushworth at £4.5m is a perfectly sensible budget keeper doing the same job. Avoid Pinnock despite the tidy projection — three starts in five is exactly the rotation coin-flip a £4.5m defender exists to spare you from.

The honest caveat: the first two fixtures are the worst of the lot. Newcastle at home and Tottenham away are not clean-sheet bankers, so your Thomas purchase may spend a fortnight looking clever on paper and ordinary on the pitch. The run opens up from gameweek three, and that's when the shirts should start paying.

The call: buy Bobby Thomas at £4.0m — he starts, he's cheap, and the fixtures are coming to him. He's precisely the enabler that funds the expensive stuff elsewhere, and unlike most £4.0m defenders, he actually plays. Leave the attack alone entirely. There's nothing there, and our model isn't shy about saying so.