How it works
The Onside Prediction Engine
How we pick captains, recommend transfers, and rank players — explained without the jargon.
The model
Onside runs engine v5 — a depth-2 Gradient Boosted Tree (GBT) meta-stacker. That sounds complex, but the idea is straightforward: instead of having one formula predict FPL points, we run 9 separate signals through a stacking model that has learned how to weight each signal based on how well it actually predicts points in real gameweeks.
The output is a single number — xP (expected points) — for each player, for each gameweek. xP is Onside's best estimate of how many FPL points that player will score, accounting for their fixtures, fitness, form, and attacking role.
See xP in action on the Players tab — sort any column by xP to rank every FPL player.
The 9 signals
The meta-stacker combines predictions from these 9 base signals into a single xP score.
FPL Form
Rolling 30-day points-per-game from the official FPL API. A player's recent momentum, as measured by FPL's own scoring system.
Fixture Difficulty (FDR)
Home/away adjusted fixture rating on a 1–5 scale. A player facing a rank-19 defence scores far more xP than one facing the league leaders.
Ownership momentum
Rate of change in ownership %. A player being transferred in rapidly is being noticed by the market — often a leading indicator of an incoming haul.
DefCon level
Defensive strength of the opposition — a custom signal built by Onside that goes beyond FDR. Combines goals conceded, xGA, and recent form to rate each team's defensive vulnerability.
Set-piece role
Whether the player takes corners, free-kicks, or penalties — sourced from FBRef, updated every Tuesday. Takers generate materially more assists and goal involvement.
Bookmaker odds
Market-implied goal and assist probability from aggregated betting markets. Odds aggregate the views of professional analysts who watch every match — a powerful calibration signal.
Per-team residuals
Team-level performance adjustments above or below expected goals baseline. Some clubs consistently over- or under-perform their xG; residuals capture that systematic bias.
Premier Injuries
Availability signal scraping official injury and suspension data. A player with a 40% start probability gets heavily discounted xP regardless of how strong their other signals are.
ICT Index
FPL's composite Influence + Creativity + Threat score. Measures how central a player is to their team's attacking output, beyond what goals and assists alone can capture.
Captain accuracy
Captain picks are tracked every gameweek and scored after the final whistle. Accuracy is measured as: did the recommended captain outscore the FPL average captain?
This is a deliberately strict benchmark — it compares against the collective wisdom of millions of FPL managers, not a random baseline. The engine scores well on this metric because it combines bookmaker odds (who is likely to score?) with fixture difficulty (are they likely to play?) and form (are they in form right now?).
Live captain results appear on the dashboard once a gameweek is scored.
How often does it update?
Player xP scores
Recalculates as soon as new FPL data is available
Set-piece roles
FBRef scrape, merged with curated overrides
Model weights
GBT meta-stacker retrained on latest scored GW data
Limitations — no model is perfect
Late team news, surprise rotations, and red cards introduce variance that no model can predict. A striker who misses the warm-up bus on Saturday morning has 0 xP in reality, regardless of what the engine projected on Thursday.
Onside uses bookmaker odds and official injury feeds to update xP scores as close to kickoff as possible — but the final team sheets are announced 75 minutes before kickoff, and sometimes managers make unexpected choices even then.
The engine is calibrated to be right more often than it is wrong over a full season. It is not designed to guarantee the correct captain pick every single week — no tool can do that. The goal is to give you a statistically better starting point than gut feel alone.
Always check the latest injury news before your deadline. Onside's availability tracker shows the most recent FPL status for every player.
How to use Onside predictions
Check xP scores
Open the Players tab and sort by xP (expected points) to see which players are projected to score the most in the next gameweek. Filter by position, budget, or ownership to find the best options for your squad.
Review captain pick
The dashboard Captain card shows the top captain recommendation for the current gameweek, backed by the full 9-signal xP model. Check the confidence margin and the runner-up picks before you commit.
Check fixture difficulty
Visit /fixtures to see the full FDR (fixture difficulty rating) table across the next 6 gameweeks. Green = easy, red = hard. Plan your transfers and chip timing around favourable fixture runs.
Review set-piece roles
Visit /set-pieces to see who takes corners, free-kicks, and penalties for each team. Set-piece takers generate far more FPL points than non-takers at the same price — this is one of the most underleveraged edges in FPL.