Hull City FPL: Who To Own, Captain And Avoid

Hull City: the value is at the wrong end — and that's fine

A £4.0m centre-half who starts every week, tops our Hull projections for the next six, and sits in barely half of one in 10 squads. That's John Egan, and that's the whole Hull conversation in one sentence.

Because here's the honest read on this team: the defence is the tenth-meanest in the league by our numbers, the attack ranks fourteenth, and the fixtures split the same way — an average run for clean sheets, a genuinely tough run for goals. Chelsea and Newcastle away in the next three will do that. So if you're buying into Hull, you're buying the back end, at the floor of the price scale, and you're doing it for minutes and the odd shutout — not for hauls.

Egan is the pick and it isn't close. He's nailed, he's the cheapest a defender can be, and our model has him clearly ahead of Ajayi despite Ajayi being the more-owned of the two — that ordering is deliberate, so follow it. Giles at the same £4.0m is the interesting second route: also nailed, on free kicks and corners, owned by roughly 1 in 10... rounded up. If you want a whiff of attacking return from a bottom-price defender, he's it. Tzolakis at £4.6m is a perfectly respectable bench keeper who'll actually play, which is more than most in his bracket can say.

The attack is where I stop you. McBurnie has penalties and hardly anyone owns him, but a fourteenth-ranked attack heading into Chelsea, Newcastle and Fulham away is not where £5.5m of your budget belongs. Belloumi is the same story cheaper. Romance, both of them. Ask yourself who scores.

The caveat on all of it: two starts is a thin sample, and Aston Villa at home first up is no gimme for a shutout. If Egan drops out of the XI once, the whole case collapses — but that's true of every £4.0m defender, and most of them don't even start.

The call: buy Egan as your set-and-forget cheap defender — he's exactly what £4.0m is supposed to buy, a starter with clean-sheet potential who frees up money for the players who actually win you the week. Giles if you want the set-piece version. Leave the Hull attack on the shelf.