Who Is Actually Playing Badly? A 5-Metric Check on the Premier League's Strugglers - And the Hull City Trap

Earlier we looked at Fulham and found a team with genuinely good underlying numbers stuck on zero points. This is the mirror image of that question: which teams have been consistently poor across the underlying metrics themselves, not just in the results column? We ranked all 20 clubs on five team-level measures - distance covered, shots on target, accurate passes, xG and touches in the opposition box - and then cross-checked Fantasy Football Scout's fixture ticker to see who gets to play them. One team came out looking terrible on every attacking metric while sitting 3rd in the table, and that contradiction is the most important thing in this article.

The Method: Five Metrics, One Composite Rank

Every club has played exactly three matches, so season totals and "last three games" are the same thing right now. We took each team's league rank in five categories and averaged them, so a higher average rank number means a worse all-round performance profile.

Five-metric composite ranking - FotMob data

The single most extreme number in the whole dataset is Aston Villa's 0.3 shots on target per match. The 19th-placed team, Coventry, manages 2.3 - more than seven times as many. Villa rank 9th for accurate passes, which tells you they do get on the ball; they simply never turn it into a shot that troubles a goalkeeper. Their three-game goalless run is not bad luck.

Tottenham are the other instructive case. They rank 7th for passes and 9th for touches in the opposition box, but 18th for xG and 19th for distance covered. They have the ball in decent areas and neither run hard enough nor create anything dangerous with it.

The Hull City Trap

Hull City rank 20th for passes, 20th for xG and 20th for touches in the opposition box - the worst attacking profile in the division on three of our five metrics. They are also third in the table, having conceded zero goals in three matches.

Worst attacking numbers, best defensive record - FotMob data

This matters because Fantasy Football Scout's fixture ticker currently rates Hull as the single easiest opponent in the league over the next five gameweeks - the deepest green on the entire board, greener than any other fixture available. Chelsea in Gameweek 4, Newcastle in Gameweek 5 and Fulham in Gameweek 7 all get that rating for facing them.

Low possession and low box touches are what a deep, compact counter-attacking side looks like from the outside. They are not evidence that a defence is easy to break down, and in Hull's case the scoreline evidence says the opposite. If you are buying attackers specifically because the ticker is green against Hull, you are betting against the only defence in the league yet to concede.

So Who Is Genuinely Struggling?

Once Hull is set aside, four teams are poor on the underlying numbers and poor in the results column:

Team	Composite rank	Standout weakness	Record
Coventry City	17.2 (worst)	19th shots on target, 19th box touches	0 pts, 0 goals scored
Aston Villa	16.8	0.3 shots on target per match (20th)	1 pt, 0 goals scored
Nottingham Forest	16.0	18th passes, 18th shots on target	2 pts
Tottenham Hotspur	13.8	19th distance, 18th xG	1 pt, 0 goals scored

Newcastle (14.0) and Leeds (14.4) also score badly on the composite, but both are unbeaten on five points, so their numbers currently read more like an efficient low-volume style than a genuine collapse. Worth monitoring rather than avoiding outright.

Who Gets to Play Them

The most useful output of this exercise is the fixture side: which in-form teams face the genuine strugglers.

Target matchups and five-gameweek fixture runs - FotMob + FFS ticker

Brighton away at Coventry (Gameweek 4) is the standout. Brighton lead the league for xG and rank 3rd for accurate passes, and they face the worst composite team in the division. It is the cleanest mismatch on the board this week.

Everton at Tottenham is the second pick. Everton rank 4th for shots on target and are unbeaten, while Spurs have not scored in three games and rank 19th for distance covered.

Looking further ahead, Newcastle have the best run against weak opposition, drawing Coventry in Gameweek 6 and Aston Villa in Gameweek 7 back to back. Chelsea get Tottenham in Gameweek 8, Manchester United get Tottenham in Gameweek 6, and Brentford get Aston Villa in Gameweek 6.

Fixtures to Avoid

Two upcoming fixtures pit strugglers directly against each other, and both are likely to be low-quality, low-return games for FPL purposes:

• Aston Villa vs Nottingham Forest (GW4) - composite ranks 16.8 and 16.0. Villa have not scored all season and Forest rank 18th for shots on target.
• Tottenham vs Aston Villa (GW5) - both sides are still goalless for the season after three games.

For more on how these teams got here, see our Bottom 5 Reality Check, which found that Fulham's underlying numbers were far better than their results suggested.

FPL Takeaways

Action	Target	Reasoning
Buy	Brighton attackers	League-best xG, away at the worst composite side (GW4)
Buy	Everton attackers	4th for shots on target vs a goalless Spurs (GW4)
Watch	Newcastle assets	Coventry and Aston Villa back to back in GW6-GW7
Avoid	Aston Villa, Coventry, Forest, Spurs assets	Bottom of the composite and bottom of the table
Do not chase	Attackers facing Hull City	Ticker says easiest fixture; Hull have conceded zero

Frequently Asked Questions

Q1. Which Premier League team is playing worst on the underlying numbers?

Coventry City, with an average rank of 17.2 across distance covered, shots on target, passes, xG and touches in the opposition box. They also have zero points and zero goals from three games.

Q2. Why is Hull City ranked as an easy fixture when they are 3rd?

Fixture difficulty models weigh possession and attacking volume heavily, and Hull rank 20th in passes, xG and box touches. But those low numbers reflect a deep counter-attacking style, and Hull have not conceded a goal in three matches, so the "easy fixture" rating is misleading.

Q3. How bad is Aston Villa's attacking record this season?

Aston Villa average 0.3 shots on target per match, by far the worst in the league. The 19th-ranked team manages 2.3, more than seven times as many, and Villa have not scored in three games.

Q4. Which team has the best fixtures against struggling opposition?

Newcastle United, who face Coventry City in Gameweek 6 and Aston Villa in Gameweek 7 - back-to-back fixtures against two of the four genuinely struggling teams.

Q5. Which Gameweek 4 fixture is the best to target in FPL?

Coventry City vs Brighton. Brighton lead the league for xG and rank 3rd for accurate passes, while Coventry rank worst in our five-metric composite.

Data sources: FotMob team stats | Fantasy Football Scout Fixture Ticker (as of 10 September 2026)

Related reading: GW4 Preview: Manchester Derby | Bottom 5 Reality Check | Aston Villa's Goalless Crisis