Hidemasa Morita and Hayden Hackney: Do they improve their teams?
Are Everton picks more appealing than before?
After a relatively quiet week, transfer activity is ramping up.
Chelsea have officially announced Maxence Lacroix. Mamadou Sangaré is close to joining Brentford. And Fulham are reportedly buying Gonzalo García from Real Madrid.
There are also endless rumours about Bradley Barcola, Vinicius Jr., or Savinho, and it feels like another transfer 💣 is close.
But before they all blow up, let’s look at some other moves.
Hidemasa Morita, Hull’s newest addition
Look, it’s not been easy for Hull City and their fans this pre-season.
It’s one of the least likely promotions to the Premier League in recent times, largely because of how poorly their defence performed in the Championship last campaign.
Clearly, they need to be smart in the transfer market, and, with all due respect, starting the window by signing Jack Butland, Matt Targett, and Óscar Zambrano, number six from Slovenian side Maribor, felt underwhelming.
And although I contributed to that current public mood with my earlier deep dive, which bluntly stated that you should target Hull as often as you can in FPL, today I feel like giving them some credit.
Their latest signing, Hidemasa Morita (£5.0m), will hardly become an obvious FPL pick to target. But he’s certainly a feel-good player that managers and fans love.
And not just because that name sounds like a badass Japanese actor who will feature in Shōgun Season 2.
Despite being 31 and coming from Portugal, which is always tricky when it comes to how quickly a player can adapt to the demands of the Premier League, he fits the mould of a workhorse who makes the team better as a whole.
At Sporting, he played alongside Morten Hjulmand in the double pivot and was the more advanced of the pair. Even so, he contributed a lot defensively.
What stood out was how happy he was to step out – he ranked in the 90th+ percentile for tackles attempted and had an above-average success rate, making him a prolific tackler given that massive volume. He also has elite positional awareness, blocking and intercepting passes left, right and centre.
As a result, he won plenty of balls in the areas that mattered most, stopping many dangerous attacks before they could happen.
He actually had pretty strong DEFCON numbers, averaging 11 defensive contributions per 90 minutes. You would expect him to do a fair share of defending at Hull.
What makes him extremely valuable is the progression and creativity he offers. With him, it’s mainly about passing. He ranked in the 90th+ percentile for an advanced goal probability added model measuring how his distribution increased the team’s likelihood of scoring.
Not only was Morita super-involved in the build-up, playing all sorts of forward, progressive, and line-breaking passes, but he also averaged 0.15 open-play xA, which is a lot for his role. During the season, he played plenty of fantastic through balls from deep and in the final third, mostly centrally or from the left half-space.
Certainly useful for a counter-attacking team like Hull.
Now, his numbers are inflated by playing for a dominant side, which won’t be the case at Hull, plus he’s not a standout runner and not strong physically, but he’s an interesting profile and someone who came to make an immediate impact.
It doesn’t change anything in terms of FPL, but it’s perhaps a sign that Hull will try their hardest to be competitive and tackle their biggest issues. Or tackle out of it – there are also rumours they’re close to signing Florentino Luís, a destroyer-type number 6.
What to expect from Hull in the Premier League?
It’s crazy to think this might or might not be the reason Hull were promoted to the Premier League:
Hayden Hackney: A missing piece?
Another one that makes you think “why this person runs the FPL website when he doesn’t discuss any proper FPL picks in that article?”
Well, if you’re a regular Data Dribble reader, you know that context is everything (or at least a lot).
And Hayden Hackney’s (£5.5m) arrival could, potentially, have a significant impact on popular picks – Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall (£6.5m) and James Garner (£6.0m).
We’re talking about one of the most influential Championship players last season (he’s literally the 2025-26 Championship player of the season), and someone who will be hard for Middlesbrough to replace.
So, what does he do?
Well, kinda everything.
He’s a 24-year-old English box-to-box midfielder who recorded 5 goals and 7 assists last season, which is roughly 3 goals and 4 assists in PL terms. Who knows. But the final product is just an extra for him.
Simply put:
he gets the ball into the final third
he can do it in several ways
he can do it often
Bingo.
He can pass there, cross there, carry the ball there, dribble into the space – all at a high level. In goal probability added/VAEP metrics, he was in the 95th+ percentile for both running and passing. His dribble volume is in the 90th percentile with a solid success rate.
Hackney was also on about 40% of Middlesbrough set-pieces, which inflated volume-based metrics like passes that led directly to a shot, and also xG assisted, which rose to 0.19 p90 – another amazing number for number 8.
But if you dig deeper, you find that just 33% of key passes and 20% of xA are from set-pieces.
That’s useful to know, because at Everton he’ll likely get a minimum with KDH and Garner in the team.
His passing range is excellent.
Thanks to his running and dribbling, he can get into the box and distribute from the most dangerous areas.
Thanks to his creativity, he can play diagonal and vertical passes from the half-spaces, both close to the box and from deep. Crossing is rather average, but does it really matter?
One last thing - he averaged about 8.80 defensive contributions per 90, which is not too shabby. It’s about 0.4 fewer than Gueye and Ndiaye averaged last season. Note that Middlesbrough were the most possession-based team in the Championship. He’ll hit the threshold sometimes…
If you believe he’s a regular starter (he should be) and bump up his minutes in Solio’s market-based projection model, he becomes one of the best £5.5 million MID picks:
And not too far from KDH’s xPoints, despite being £1 million less.
Still, I’d like to see that dynamic first and would rather pay £0.5m more for Garner in Gameweek 1 (if he’s fit by then), or wait to see whether Hackney a) gets back to match fitness quickly after the injury, and produces points and b) whether KDH’s goal threat will improve with him behind.
Óscar Mingueza: Ready to bomb the box
The transfer that goes against the current trend of runners, physical & aerial monsters and players who can do a bit of everything.
Mingueza isn’t particularly good at defending. He was slightly below average (at best) in the most vital metrics at Celta Vigo. Also, his carrying and dribbling are a bit meh – not a total disaster, but not something you’d buy him for.
But let me tell you, that man likes to kick the ball into the box.
And the good news is he creates plenty of chances that way:
From the list above, the open-play xA is the most vital metric for FPL managers, alongside deep completions (passes completed within a 20-metre radius of the goal) and deep shots assisted.
His trademark pass from the byline into the cutback zone is disgustingly accurate, creating dangerous chances. I can vividly picture Ismaïla Sarr on the end of them.
At Celta, he also often roamed in both half-spaces, spraying those throughballs into the box.
Now, he can play on both the right and the left, but Pierre Sage has Daniel Muñoz and Tyrick Mitchell available. Mitchell is one of the best defensive wing-backs in the league, and Muñoz… well, we all know Muñoz. So, his expected minutes are uncertain, and he’s more of a squad player right now.
Well, at least you know he exists, and that if one of his teammates gets injured, the wing-backs’ chance-creation rate will be absurd.
FPL is a game of information, after all.
That’s all for today.
See you very soon!
