Coventry City host Hull City at the Coventry Building Society Arena on Saturday 29 August, kick-off 15:00 UK time. Both clubs came up from the Championship, and their opening weekends in the Premier League could hardly have contrasted more sharply: Coventry were beaten 3-0 at Arsenal, while Hull shut out Manchester United in a 2-0 win.
That makes Gameweek 2 an early measuring stick for both. Coventry get their first home Premier League fixture and, at the time of writing, the Statz model still fancies their underlying numbers here. All the live data for this one sits on the match page.
These are predicted XIs, not confirmed teams. We will update this section when the official team sheets land, usually around an hour before kick-off.
Carl Rushworth is expected in goal behind a back four of Milan van Ewijk, Bobby Thomas, Aurele Amenda and Jay Dasilva. Caleb Yirenkyi, Matt Grimes and Frank Onyeka make up the midfield, with Loum Tchaouna, Ellis Simms and Brandon Thomas-Asante as the front three.
Konstantinos Tzolakis starts in goal behind a back five of Ryan Giles, Cody Drameh, Nobel Mendy, John Egan and Patrick McNair. Elliot Stroud, Regan Slater, Matt Crooks and Mohamed Belloumi sit in front of them, with Oliver McBurnie leading the line alone.
Coventry's last ten matches read six wins, three draws and a single defeat, and that defeat was the opening-weekend 3-0 at Arsenal. They responded in midweek with a 4-2 Carabao Cup win at Plymouth Argyle, and they closed out their Championship promotion campaign in style: 4-0 at Watford, 3-1 against Wrexham and 5-1 against Portsmouth.
Hull are unbeaten in six, a run of four wins and two draws. The headline result is obvious: a 2-0 home win over Manchester United on opening weekend, followed by a 1-1 draw at Stoke in the Carabao Cup on Tuesday. They also finished last season strongly, beating Middlesbrough 1-0 and winning 2-0 at Millwall. After one round of Premier League fixtures they rank 1st of 20 for goals against, having kept a clean sheet in their only league game so far.
No player in this fixture carries an active streak at Statz's tracked thresholds, but the five-game form lines still offer plenty.
Coventry centre-back Aurele Amenda has committed at least one foul in every one of his last five appearances, 9 fouls in total at an average of 1.8 per game. His opposite number Nobel Mendy has done the same for Hull: a foul in all five, 8 in total at 1.6 per game.
Up front, Oliver McBurnie has landed a shot on target in four of his last five matches, 10 in total across that run at an average of 2 per game, including one five-shot-on-target performance. And John Egan has made a tackle in four of his last five.
See the live Statz numbers for this fixture.
See the live Statz numbers for this fixture.
The standout value line in this match is John Egan for 1+ shot on target. The Statz model rates him the 4th most likely player in this fixture to land one, yet the market prices him just 20th, and he was available at 5.5 at the time of writing. He is in Hull's predicted XI as part of the back five.
The foul market is where the model disagrees with the prices most often here. Ellis Simms to commit 1+ foul was 1.8 at the time of writing, with the model ranking him 2nd most likely in the match against a market price rank of 16th. For bigger prices, Loum Tchaouna and Milan van Ewijk for 2+ fouls were both 4.5 at the time of writing, and the model ranks each 2nd most likely against a market rank of 16th. All three are in Coventry's predicted XI.
Referee Joshua Smith's only game this season averaged 5 yellow cards and 21 fouls, a one-game sample worth treating with care, but it does nothing to put you off the foul angles. Hull also rank 6th of 20 for cards after the opening round. Full player and match projections for the weekend are on the Premier League projections page.
At the time of writing the Statz model projected Coventry for 1.79 goals and 18.35 shots against 1.15 and 10.32 for Hull, so the data leans towards the home side despite the contrast in opening results. Hull's shape and their shut-out of Manchester United say they will make that hard work, and their unbeaten six-game run is real. The value here sits in the player markets: Egan on target at a big price, and the Coventry foul lines the model rates far more likely than the market does.