The Premise:
Back in January after gameweek 29, we published an xG breakdown of Hull City’s 2025/26 season covering the first 28 league games played. At that point, Hull sat third in the Championship — a team generating chances and winning games at a rate of 1.79 points per game. Now, four more league fixtures have been played. Has anything changed?

The Split

• Period 1: Gameweeks 1–29  ·  Aug 9, 2025 – Jan 31, 2026  ·  28 matches played (GW26 vs Watford was postponed)
• Period 2: Gameweeks 30–33  ·  Feb 4–21, 2026  ·  4 matches (GW32 vs Ipswich postponed — FA Cup)

Metric	Period 1 GW1–29 (28 played)	Period 2 GW30–33 (4 played)	Trend
Record (W/D/L)	15 / 6 / 8	1 / 1 / 2	↓
Points per game	1.76	1.00	↓
Goals scored	47	4	↓
Goals conceded	40	6	↑

xG stats are shown in the charts below — no need to enter them manually.

Headline: Hull’s points-per-game has dropped from 1.79 to 1.00 since gameweek 29 — one win from four league games, with six goals conceded, raises questions about whether the team’s xG numbers were masking an underlying fragility.

What Has Changed?

The single most important number from the scatter charts is this: Hull’s average xG is 1.32 in both periods. The attack hasn’t fallen off a cliff — they’re generating the same quality of chances. What has changed is that in Period 1, opponents were creating significantly more dangerous opportunities (xGA 1.78), while in Period 2 that has actually improved (xGA 1.25). Hull are now defending better by the xG measure and attacking identically — yet collecting fewer points.

The Period 2 xG difference bars tell the full story in four bars:

• Blackburn (W) — Large green bar (~+1.0). Hull dominated the xG emphatically and won. Exactly what you want to see.
• Watford (D) — Small grey bar, slightly below zero. Watford edged the xG marginally. A tight, low-quality 0-0 that the xG broadly predicted.
• Bristol City (L) — Red bar below zero (~-0.5). Bristol City had the higher xG and won. Disappointing but not an injustice — the result matched the expected goals.
• QPR (L 1-3) — Red bar above zero. This is the smoking gun. Hull had the higher xG in this match yet lost 1-3. A red bar above zero means Hull dominated on expected goals and still lost — the single most anomalous result of the entire post-GW29 period, and one that flatters QPR enormously.

Compare that to Period 1, where the pattern across 29 games shows a large number of red bars below zero — opponents frequently generating better chances, Hull winning anyway. That overperformance couldn’t last forever. What we’re now seeing in Period 2 is partly that mean-reversion arriving, and partly one genuinely baffling QPR result distorting the numbers.

The home/away split is perhaps the starkest finding of the entire mid-season review. In Period 1, Hull were remarkably balanced: 26 pts from 14 home games (PPG 1.86) and 24 pts from 14 away games (PPG 1.71). That near-identical home and away performance is genuinely unusual at Championship level — most promotion challengers lean heavily on one or the other. In Period 2, that balance has shattered completely. Away: 3 pts from 1 game — the Blackburn win, a dominant xG performance, all green on the donut. Home: 1 pt from 3 games (PPG 0.33) — mostly red and grey, with just the Watford draw to show for three MKM Stadium appearances. The home form has collapsed. The Watford draw and the Bristol City and QPR losses (the latter a game Hull dominated on xG) have all come in front of their own supporters. Whether that’s coincidence, crowd pressure, or a tactical issue Jakirović needs to solve urgently is the question the xG data alone can’t fully answer.

QPR 3–1 Hull City · Feb 21, 2026

The xG difference chart shows this as a red bar above zero — meaning Hull had the higher expected goals in this match, yet lost 3-1 away at QPR. It is the single most anomalous result of the post-GW29 period. Hull created more and better chances on the xG model, QPR were clinical far beyond what their chances warranted, and Hull head home with nothing. The kind of result that makes xG sceptics reach for their keyboards — but statistically, exactly the sort of outlier that tends not to repeat.

Match Statistics

Blackburn Rovers 0–1 Hull City · Feb 4, 2026

The xG difference bar for this match is the largest positive bar in Period 2 — approximately +1.0, meaning Hull dominated the expected goals by a full goal and converted it into a clean sheet win. The away donut chart for Period 2 is entirely green, and this is the reason why. The contrast with QPR — where Hull also generated higher xG but lost 3-1 — is as stark an illustration of variance as you’ll find across any four-game sample.

Match Statistics

Has anything changed since Gameweek 29?

On results alone, yes — and not for the better. One win from four league games and six goals conceded represents a sharp drop from the form that put Hull third. The xG charts will tell you whether the underlying picture backs up that concern or whether this is statistical turbulence.

The Verdict

Final Verdict: Same xG, better defence, worse results — and one QPR anomaly that defied the numbers entirely. The xG says Hull aren’t broken. The home form says there’s something specific to fix at the MKM. Solve that, and the promotion push is very much still on.