Hull City have made an impressive start to the 2026-27 Premier League season despite being widely tipped for relegation before the campaign began, with Sergej Jakirovic’s side collecting eight points from their opening four matches.
The Tigers were written off by many observers even before their promotion was confirmed through the Championship play-offs. Some predictions went as far as suggesting that Hull could threaten Derby County’s record for the lowest points total in Premier League history. While such forecasts were arguably premature, they reflected the level of surprise surrounding Hull’s promotion.
Hull’s Championship campaign was not particularly dominant, and their underlying figures suggested they had significantly outperformed expectations. Opta’s expected points, or xPts, model uses the expected goals value of every shot taken by both teams to simulate possible match outcomes. Each game is simulated 10,000 times, with the results used to calculate the proportion of wins, draws and defeats and, ultimately, an expected points total.
The model is not a perfect measure because xG does not capture every factor that affects a football match, including game state and dangerous periods of possession that do not result in shots. Nevertheless, it remains a useful indicator of performance, especially over a long period.
Hull collected 73 points in the 2025-26 Championship season, but their xPts figure was only 53.1. Only Sheffield Wednesday, with 30.0 expected points, recorded a lower figure than the Tigers. Had the Championship standings been based on expected points, Hull would have finished in the bottom three and been relegated. Their 19.9-point difference between their actual total and expected points was also the biggest overperformance recorded in the division.
Based on those numbers, Hull appeared to face a difficult task in the Premier League. However, only four games into the new season, Jakirovic’s men have already defied those expectations.
Their latest impressive result came on Saturday when Hull secured a 2-2 draw against Chelsea at Stamford Bridge. Few expected the newly promoted side to take anything from the game against Chelsea’s in-form attacking trio of João Pedro, Cole Palmer and Morgan Rogers, even with the Blues having shown defensive weaknesses earlier in the campaign.
Hull fell behind to a clinical finish from Rogers, but they turned the match around before half-time through two goals from Mohamed Belloumi. João Pedro equalised shortly after the hour mark, and Chelsea appeared capable of completing the comeback, particularly after their midweek EFL Cup victory over Leeds United.
However, Hull were good value for the point they collected and could even argue that they deserved all three points based on the quality of the opportunities created. The Tigers recorded four big chances during the match, compared with two for Chelsea. Big chances are opportunities from which a player would ordinarily be expected to score.
The result continued Hull’s encouraging start to life in the Premier League. They had already beaten Manchester United and Coventry City before drawing with Aston Villa, leaving them with eight points from four matches.
That record puts Hull among the promoted teams with the strongest starts in Premier League history. Only Nottingham Forest in 1994-95 and Bolton Wanderers in 2001-02 collected more than eight points after four matchdays, with both clubs taking 10 points. Neither Forest nor Bolton were relegated in those seasons, while the other two promoted teams that started with eight points after four matches also avoided relegation.
One explanation for Hull’s rapid adaptation to the Premier League is that they have not dramatically changed their approach to the game. Even in the Championship, the Tigers were not a side that regularly sought to dominate matches through possession.
Across the full 2025-26 campaign, including the play-offs, Hull averaged 45.0 per cent possession, the fifth-lowest figure in the Championship. That number has dropped to 29.3 per cent this season, but Hull have not had to make a complete adjustment from being a possession-heavy team to playing without the ball.
Coventry City provide an interesting comparison. They averaged 55.1 per cent possession last season, the fourth-highest figure in the Championship, but that has fallen to 38.6 per cent in the Premier League. While the scale of the drop is comparable to Hull’s, Coventry have moved from generally having more possession than their opponents to having considerably less.
Hull, by contrast, have largely continued with the mentality that served them in the second tier.
They are also following a path previously taken by Sunderland. The Black Cats were promoted in 2024-25 without trying to dominate possession, meaning they were already familiar with that mentality when they entered the Premier League. Sunderland also spent heavily and recruited effectively, but maintaining a familiar approach within the squad was another factor that could have helped their adaptation.
Sunderland manager Régis Le Bris addressed the subject last week when discussing the need to combine humility with belief. He has embraced the underdog tag while also making it clear that his players should not enter matches believing they can only beat teams from the bottom half of the table.
Before last season, several promoted sides had relied heavily on possession-based football, only to find that they could not maintain the same approach after stepping up to the Premier League or struggled to turn possession into points. Southampton’s 2024-25 campaign was one example.
Possession figures do not tell the complete story of a football team, but they can provide an indication of its mindset when in possession. Hull have essentially continued with the type of football they played last season rather than attempting to reinvent themselves.
The Tigers were one of the deepest teams in the Championship last season, with the average starting position of their open-play passing sequences 41.2 metres from their own goal line. They are even deeper in the Premier League this season, with that figure standing at 37.7 metres, the lowest in the division.
Hull were also among the least intricate teams in the Championship. They produced only 39 sequences of 10 or more passes that ended with either a shot or a touch inside the opposition box, which was the sixth-lowest total in the second tier. This season, they have produced just one such sequence in the Premier League, the lowest figure in the division.
They were also one of the most direct sides in the Championship, averaging 2.7 passes per sequence, the fifth-lowest figure. Their average has dropped to 2.5 passes per sequence in the Premier League, the lowest in the top flight.
Jakirovic highlighted this mentality before Hull’s opening-day victory over Manchester United, saying, “Mostly we will be underdogs, but we’re used to it.” His comments reflected the fact that Hull were not expected to achieve much in the Championship, let alone in the Premier League.
The approach has helped make Hull difficult to beat. Their priority is to avoid conceding, while their physical competitiveness has also been a major feature of their performances. They rank fourth in the Premier League for duel success at 53.2 per cent, sixth for aerial duel success at 52.3 per cent, joint-fifth for tackle attempts with 65 and second for long passes with 237.
It may not be the most attractive style of football, but it has been effective during the opening weeks of the season.
After Saturday’s draw at Stamford Bridge, Jakirovic revealed that he had set his players a target before the season began. He told the squad they would receive a week off if they could collect seven or eight points from their first five matches.
Hull have already reached that target with one match still to play, but Jakirovic remains cautious about the challenges ahead.
The manager admitted that he was concerned about the upcoming international break because 13 Hull players are expected to join their respective national teams. “I’m a bit concerned about the international break because we have 13 national team players,” he said after the Chelsea match.
Jakirovic knows that a strong start will mean little if Hull cannot maintain their form after the international break.
The Tigers also have historical experience of starting Premier League campaigns strongly before struggling later in the season. In 2008-09, Hull were third after nine matchdays and remained in the top half until Matchday 24, but they eventually survived relegation by only one point.
In 2013-14, Hull collected 11 points from their first seven matches and lost only to Chelsea and Manchester City during that period. However, they were eventually dragged into a relegation battle.
Then, in 2014-15, Hull lost only two of their first nine games but suffered a significant decline afterwards and eventually finished 18th, resulting in relegation.
There is therefore still a long way to go for the current Hull team. However, their defensive resilience, direct style and willingness to continue playing the football that served them well in the Championship have helped them make an impressive start to life in the Premier League.
A season spent as underdogs and defying expectations in the Championship appears to have provided Hull with useful preparation for another campaign in which they are once again expected to struggle. For now, Jakirovic’s side are showing that they can compete at the highest level despite the doubts that surrounded them before the season began.
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