Who To Pick From Hull

Drafting from Hull

Hull are eighteenth on 76 with thirty-two names and not one elite player among them, and the squad splits cleanly in two. Oli McBurnie at 81 is the only man above 78. Behind him Jack Butland and Hidemasa Morita share 78, John Egan is on 77 and Semi Ajayi on 76, and from there it falls away across a spread of eight.

The genuine warning sits on the right. Right midfield comes in at 67 from a single body, and that is not merely Hull's own weak spot but the worst group on the whole wheel; no other club fields a department that low. Set it against the best thing here, centre-back at 75 across four, and you have the shape of the problem: a floor rather than a peak, four defenders who will not embarrass you and none who will win you anything. Thirty-two names, and the volume is doing very little work. Fifteen of them are English, more than Chelsea manage in a squad of thirty-eight, so if a domestic core is what you are after, the bodies are here even if the ratings are not.

The legend slot is where Hull stop being a bargain bin. Andy Robertson at 90 is the highest-rated of the four and a left-back, which is exactly the flank this squad cannot cover, and a flank is exactly what this squad cannot cover. He will not repair the right-hand side, since he plays on the left, but he lifts one touchline to a standard the club reaches nowhere else, nine clear of McBurnie and a world away from the 67 at the other end of the pitch. Take Robertson, build the rest of your side elsewhere, and use Hull for English depth and nothing more.