Sensational Hull City: 16 months from a Championship relegation battle to an unbeaten Premier League start
In May 2025, the Tigers avoided relegation to the third tier of English football only on goal difference. Now Hull City are unbeaten in the Premier League, have already defeated Manchester United and taken points off Chelsea. Here is how one of English football’s biggest underdogs made this journey in just 16 months.
On 3 May 2025, hardly anyone in Hull was thinking about the Premier League.
The team travelled to Portsmouth for the final round of the Championship season with disaster looming. Hull drew 1-1, reached 49 points and finished the campaign in 21st place. Luton, who ended up below them, also had 49 points. The difference came down solely to the tiebreakers: the Tigers had a goal difference of -10, while Luton’s was -24. Those fourteen goals separated Hull from League One.
A little over a year later, the same club was winning the Championship play-off final at Wembley. Sixteen months later, Hull had already beaten Manchester United, kept clean sheets in their first three Premier League matches and taken points at Stamford Bridge.
Following a 2-2 draw with Chelsea on 12 September, the Tigers have eight points from four matches and remain unbeaten. After Saturday’s fixtures in the fourth round, they sat third in the table. For a team that was almost automatically labelled as a relegation candidate before the season, the start looks almost unbelievable.
But what makes the story of the current Hull side so fascinating is that it cannot simply be explained by one successful transfer window or a short run of results.
From seventh place to a relegation battle
To understand the scale of the transformation, we need to go back a little further.
In the 2023/24 season, Hull finished seventh in the Championship and narrowly missed out on the play-offs. However, club owner Acun Ilıcalı decided to sack Liam Rosenior because of differences over their footballing vision and appointed Tim Walter.
The decision proved disastrous. By the end of November 2024, Hull were in the relegation zone. Walter won just three of his 17 Championship matches and was dismissed after a run of nine games without a victory. He was replaced by Rubén Sellés, who managed to stabilise the team, but only enough to save them at the very last moment.
In the 2024/25 season, Hull scored just 44 goals in 46 matches. The team’s top scorer, João Pedro, found the net six times. The final record was 12 wins, 13 draws, 21 defeats and a 21st-place finish.
Sellés achieved the main objective and kept the club up. Yet just 12 days after the end of the season, he was sacked.
At the time, it may have looked like yet another example of Hull’s chaotic management. Within a single year, the club had parted ways with Rosenior, Walter and Sellés. The board’s next choice was hardly an obvious one either.
On 11 June 2025, Bosnian coach Sergej Jakirović took charge of the team.
The coach nobody expected miracles from
Jakirović arrived in England with no experience of working in British football.
He had coached in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Slovenia, Croatia and Turkey, had worked with Dinamo Zagreb and, immediately before joining Hull, had been in charge of Kayserispor. For a club that had only just escaped relegation to League One, his appointment looked more like a gamble than a guarantee of progress.
And very quickly, the task became even more difficult. In the summer of 2025, the EFL imposed transfer restrictions on Hull because of an overdue payment to Aston Villa for the loan of Louie Barry. Initially, the sanction was set to remain in place for three transfer windows. After an appeal, the period was reduced to two, but throughout the entire 2025/26 season the club was unable to pay transfer or loan fees as normal.
In practice, Jakirović had to build his squad using free agents and available loan deals. And it was here that the foundations of the club’s future rise were laid.
Hull signed Oli McBurnie as a free agent. Joe Gelhardt returned on loan from Leeds. Mohamed Belloumi, Ryan Giles, Regan Slater, Lewie Coyle and other players stayed at the club, and the coach gradually built them into a system that became extremely awkward for opponents to face.
McBurnie became the main focal point in attack. He scored 17 goals in the regular season. Gelhardt added 14. The team finally developed a clear identity.
Simple football delivered results
Looking at the statistics, Hull should never have been promoted.
The team finished sixth: 21 wins, 10 draws and 15 defeats, with 70 goals scored, 66 conceded and 73 points. Their goal difference was a modest +4.
The xG figures were even more striking. According to Opta’s model, the Tigers’ results were significantly better than the quality of the chances they created and conceded would suggest. Their actual goal difference was +4, while their expected goal difference was approximately -19.5. According to the expected metrics, the team should have been somewhere near the relegation zone rather than fighting for a place in the Premier League.
But Jakirović’s football was never built around the desire to dominate every statistical category.
Hull became more direct, more physical and far more pragmatic. The team did not need 60% possession to control the course of a match. They could give the ball to the opposition, remain compact, win second balls and transition vertically into attack.
McBurnie was the key figure. The striker competed for aerial balls, allowed his teammates to push higher up the pitch and created space for the quicker players around him.
But Hull’s defining quality was something else: the team learned how to stay in matches until the final minute.
That was exactly what saved them at the end of the season.
From sixth place to Wembley
Ahead of the final round of the regular Championship season, Hull, Wrexham and Derby were all competing for sixth place.
The Tigers beat Norwich 2-1 and snatched a play-off spot at the last moment. A year earlier, the final round had determined whether the club would be relegated to League One. Now, the final round sent them into a battle for the Premier League.
Their semi-final opponents were Millwall, who had finished the season third.
The first leg ended 0-0. The second finished 2-0 away at Millwall. Belloumi and Gelhardt, both introduced from the bench, scored the two goals in the second half.
Then, on 23 May, Hull faced Middlesbrough in the final at Wembley.
For a long time, the score remained 0-0. The match was already heading towards extra time when, in the fifth minute of stoppage time, Yu Hirakawa sent the ball across goal, goalkeeper Sol Brynn parried it away, and McBurnie was exactly where a centre-forward needed to be. 1-0.
Twelve months after escaping League One, Hull were promoted to the Premier League. Remarkably, they completed all three play-off matches without conceding a goal.
It was the Tigers’ first promotion to the top flight in nine years.
And after the transfer embargo came a crazy summer
Paradoxically, the restrictions of the 2025/26 season partly helped Hull prepare for the next step.
The club had already learned how to search for players through unconventional routes. And after promotion to the Premier League, its financial capabilities changed dramatically.
In the summer of 2026, Hull signed 18 players. The club’s total investment exceeded £150 million.
However, this was not an attempt to buy two or three big-name players and hope they could save the team on their own.
Hull spread the money across numerous positions.
Greek champion Konstantinos Tzolakis arrived in goal. Nobel Mendy, Brooke Norton-Cuffy and Matt Targett strengthened the defence. Hidemasa Morita, Tim Iroegbunam, Lucas Gourna-Douath and Christos Mouzakitis joined the midfield. In attack and on the wings, the club brought in Mohamed-Ali Cho, Ilyas Ansah and Sorba Thomas, while Gelhardt was signed permanently from Leeds after his successful loan spell.
There was a certain logic behind it. Hull could not know which players would adapt to the Premier League immediately, so instead of relying on one expensive solution, they created competition in virtually every position.
After the transfer window closed, Jakirović himself stressed that he now had at least two players for almost every role and could change not only the personnel but also the team’s structure.
And in the very first round, Hull shocked Manchester United
On 22 August, the MKM Stadium hosted a Premier League match for the first time in nine years. The opponents were Manchester United. There were plenty of reasons to expect Premier League reality to catch up with the newcomers quickly. Instead, the opposite happened — Hull won 2-0.
Semi Ajayi opened the scoring from a corner, while new signing Nobel Mendy scored the second from another set piece. It was Hull’s first-ever Premier League victory over United and their first league win against them since 1974.
What was particularly revealing was the manner in which the Tigers achieved the result. They did not try to prove they could play open football against United. Hull were more aggressive in the duels, made better use of set pieces, closed off central areas and calmly protected their lead after the break.
This was the football of a team that understood its own strengths and weaknesses perfectly.
A week later, Hull won 1-0 away at Coventry. Liam Millar scored the only goal in the 82nd minute following a quick counterattack. After two rounds, the team had six points and had not conceded a goal. Then came a 0-0 draw against Aston Villa. Seven points from nine. Three consecutive clean sheets.
The biggest change — Hull learned how to defend at Premier League level
That is particularly interesting given what happened last season.
Jakirović’s team conceded 66 goals in the Championship — only a handful of clubs had a worse record. After promotion, it seemed that the defence would be the biggest problem.
But in the Premier League, the coach changed the structure.
Hull often drop into a back five without the ball, congest the central areas and force opponents to attack down the flanks. At the same time, the team does not press recklessly. Their task is to defend in a mid-block, stay compact and wait for the right moment to break forward vertically.
Tzolakis quickly became an important part of the system. On his debut against Manchester United, he made five saves. He then helped the team keep clean sheets against Coventry and Aston Villa.
And Jakirović constantly adapts his approach to each specific opponent.
Against Villa, for example, McBurnie occasionally dropped out wide when Hull were out of possession, helping to close down the flank and using his aerial advantage against smaller full-backs. The striker won nine aerial duels.
That is one of the reasons why the current Hull side are so difficult to analyse. The team’s first objective is to make the match uncomfortable, and then exploit the one or two opportunities that come their way.
Stamford Bridge showed this is no longer just a good start
After taking seven points from their first three matches, the fixture list presented another test — a trip to Chelsea.
The hosts scored as early as the seventh minute through Morgan Rogers. It was Hull’s first goal conceded in the new Premier League season.
And the response to it said more about the team than their previous three clean sheets. The Tigers did not collapse.
Belloumi scored twice within six minutes and turned the game around before half-time. Hull even went 2-1 ahead and for a while looked close to another sensational victory, before João Pedro equalised in the second half. The final score was 2-2. Eight points from four matches.
Wins over Manchester United and Coventry, a draw with Aston Villa, a draw away at Chelsea. Just two goals conceded.
And perhaps most importantly, Hull have already shown that they can pick up points in different ways.
Against United, set pieces and physical superiority made the difference. Against Coventry, it was patience and a counterattack. Against Villa, defensive discipline. Against Chelsea, the team went behind for the first time but turned the match around themselves.
This is already more than one freak result. But, of course, only time will tell.
From relegation candidates to a team that must be taken seriously
Of course, after four rounds it would be wrong and premature to talk about European qualification for Hull.
Jakirović himself makes no secret of the fact that the main objective is to stay in the Premier League. And there are enough reasons for caution.
Last season, the team significantly overperformed across a number of statistical metrics. The squad changed by almost half during the summer. Integrating 18 new players will almost inevitably lead to inconsistency. And opponents will gradually have more material with which to analyse the Tigers’ tactics.
But one thing is already clear: automatically placing Hull among the bottom three was a mistake.
This is a team with a clear coaching identity, strong physical preparation, plenty of options and players who have already gone through the pressure of relegation battles and play-off matches together.
The club has also demonstrated just how highly it values the head coach’s role. On 4 September, Jakirović signed a new contract until the summer of 2028, with an option for a further season.
There is a certain symbolism in that.
When Jakirović arrived in England in June 2025, Hull were a team that had escaped relegation to League One on goal difference only a few weeks earlier and were soon hit with transfer restrictions.
A year later, he took them to Wembley and secured promotion to the Premier League.
Three months after that, they beat Manchester United.
And 16 months after that same nerve-racking day in Portsmouth, Hull travelled to Stamford Bridge, scored twice against Chelsea and returned home disappointed only because they had failed to win.
That final detail perhaps best demonstrates just how much this club has changed.
Steven Perez
Dailysports's expert
