Coventry vs Hull Prediction: Sky Blues to find early win

The Championship returns this weekend and at Saturday lunchtime (12:30, Sky Sports+), Coventry City will begin their campaign at home to Hull City. The Sky Blues and Frank Lampard tasted play-off semi-final defeat in agonising fashion against Sunderland but will hope to go one better this term, and finally reach the Premier League after 25 years away. 

They’ll hope to get off to a winning start at the CBS Arena, and below you can find my Coventry vs Hull predictions featuring team news and betting tips. 

Team News

Coventry have brought in Brighton’s Carl Rushworth in goal this summer, and we can expect the loanee to hold the number one shirt until Oliver Dovin returns from his ACL injury at Christmas. At the back, Milan van Ewijk continues to be linked with a move away, so it will be interesting to see whether he starts, or whether new arrival Kaine Kesler-Hayden is given the nod at right-back. 

Bobby Thomas and Liam Kitching will start as the centre-backs after the sale of Luis Binks, while Jay Dasilva may be given the nod at left-back. Jack Rudoni, Ben Sheaf and Matt Grimes should start in midfield with Tatsuhiro Sakamoto on the right and Ephron Mason-Clark on the left. Up top, Haji Wright won’t be fit to start, so either Brandon Thomas-Asante or Ellis Simms will lead the line for the Sky Blues. 

Football Odds

There’s also the underlying story here of Hull City centre-back Charlie Hughes. Coventry have reportedly seen two bids of £4m and £7m rejected, with Hull allegedly valuing their 21-year-old at £20m. He has been given the vice-captaincy this season and should start at the CBS, potentially alongside one of the new arrivals in Semi Ajayi or Akin Famewo.

Oli McBurnie joined the club this week but is likely to start on the bench, while they’ve got options out wide in the form of Liam Millar, Mohamed Belloumi and Joel Ndama and Abu Kamara. The first two on that list suffered ACL injuries last term and may be brought back slowly, while another new signing, Enis Destan, may start up front. Kasey Palmer could also feature against his former club.

Coventry vs Hull Odds

Coventry are the 8/11 favourites to win this opener, while Hull have been priced at 4/1. That gives the home side an implied win probability of 58%, while the draw can be backed at 11/4.

Clearly the odds favour the home side given they finished in the top six while Hull scraped survival. If you fancy goals, then over 2.5 is priced at 10/11 and BTTS is 4/5. Wright is the favourite to open the scoring at 4/1.

Coventry to win @ 8/11

I think backing the Sky Blues to win is a good place to start. Coventry have only lost two home games in the league under Frank Lampard - to the two teams that got 100 points last term - Burnley and Leeds United. The CBS Arena has become a bit of a fortress for the home side and all the talk in pre-season has been about having a fast start, something which has been sadly lacking in the last three seasons. 

Mark Robins also started slow before coming into his own around October, but Lampard will want to give Cov a better chance of promotion this season by starting well. They should have enough to beat Hull City, who will be playing their first competitive game under Sergej Jakirovic. There’s question marks around the visitors this term while Coventry should pick up where they left off. 

Bet Builder - Ephron Mason-Clark to score and Liam Kitching to get booked @ 13/2

I’ve got a Bet Builder this Saturday lunchtime to round off our preview. Now, with Wright unlikely to start and little faith in any of the other number nines available to Lampard, I think winger Ephron Mason-Clark is a good price to score at any time. Playing from the left, he has now had a season to get used to the Championship and I think he can really kick on this term. 

He got six goals last season but took some time to adjust, while he was the last goalscorer of the season for Cov, as he found the net in that play-off semi-final at the Stadium of Light. Expect him to push on in terms of numbers this term.

Let’s pair that with a Liam Kitching card. An aggressive centre-back, he is guaranteed to start with Binks’ departure, and he racked up eight yellows in just 29 appearances last term. Hull have a few tricky attackers and could be quick on the counter-attack, so let’s back him to go into the referee’s notebook.

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