Hull 2-0 Man Utd: the €144m squad that beat the €874m one
Saturday 22 August, MKM Stadium, Premier League matchday one. Hull City, back in the top flight after nine years away, beat Manchester United 2-0. Semi Ajayi and Nobel Mendy scored, both in the first half. United finished third last season. Hull came up through the play-offs as the sixth-best team in the Championship.
One result proves nothing, and by May this one may be a footnote. But the squads that met on Saturday were built in very different ways, and that part is worth a look on day one, before the table tells us anything.
The gap
Transfermarkt values United's listed squad at €874m and Hull's at €144m. That is 6.1 times. Nineteen United players are individually worth more than Hull's most valuable player, the goalkeeper Konstantinos Tzolakis at €18m. The median United player is valued at €30m; the median Hull player at €3m.
How Hull built it
Eleven signings this summer, eight of them for a fee, about €89m in total, average age 24.5, from ten different countries. The profile is consistent: young, bought from markets where the price is honest, with a resale case.
Nobel Mendy, 21, centre-back, €23.4m from Rayo Vallecano (he scored on debut). Konstantinos Tzolakis, 23, goalkeeper, €23.3m from Olympiacos. Lucas Herrington, 18, centre-back, €14.8m from Colorado Rapids. Jens Hjertø-Dahl, 20, central midfield, €9.5m from Tromsø. Joe Gelhardt, 24, €7.6m from Leeds. Lucas Gourna-Douath, 23, €4m from Salzburg. Jack Butland, 33, €3.5m from Rangers. Elliot Stroud, 24, €2.5m from Mjällby. Hidemasa Morita (31, Sporting) and Matt Targett (30, Newcastle) on free transfers, and Óscar Zambrano, 22, from Maribor for an undisclosed fee.