Find the picks your rivals don’t have
What is a mini-league differential?
— Onside (onsidearena.com), predictions graded in public.
How the matrix works
- 01
Paste your league code
It is the number at the end of your league URL on fantasy.premierleague.com — /leagues/1234567/standings/c. Any classic league, public or one you are in. Add your own team id too and the board marks what you already hold.
- 02
We read every rival squad
Up to 20 members, their locked squads for the current gameweek, and their chip history straight from the official FPL API. Nothing is scraped and nothing is guessed.
- 03
Ownership is recomputed for your league
Effective ownership inside your league — multiplier-weighted, so a captain counts double — against FPL’s global selected-by. A 4% player can be 60% owned in your league, at which point he is template for you and the global number was lying.
- 04
Every pick is ranked by swing, not by low ownership
Swing is expected points multiplied by the share of the league that does not own the player: the points you actually gain on the average rival. It puts a 9-point striker owned by everyone below a 5-point midfielder owned by nobody, which is the correct order. Early in the season the projection is shrunk toward FPL’s own ep_next in proportion to minutes played, which is what keeps cheap unknowns with one lucky match out of the top of the board.
- 05
Captain divergence and the chip tracker
The armband is the biggest single lever in a mini-league, so the board shows what the field has captained, what the average rival’s armband is worth, and whether a different call beats it. Alongside it, which rivals have already burned a Wildcard, Free Hit, Bench Boost or Triple Captain.
Common questions
What is a mini-league differential in FPL?▾
A mini-league differential is a player whose ownership inside your specific league is much lower than his global ownership. Owning him gives you upside the rest of your league does not have — the mechanic that actually moves rank in small and mid-size leagues, where the global percentage is close to irrelevant.
How does the differential matrix work?▾
It reads your league standings and every member’s locked squad from the official FPL API, then recomputes ownership over that cohort instead of over the whole game. Each player is ranked by swing — expected points multiplied by the share of the league that does not own him — so the board surfaces picks with real upside rather than cheap players nobody owns for good reason.
Is it free, and do I need an account?▾
It is free and needs no account. A classic league code is public information and the matrix runs off the public FPL API, so you can open it, check it against your own squad and close it again without signing up for anything.
Where do the expected points come from?▾
The same Onside projection we freeze before every deadline and grade in public at /fpl/predicted-points, shrunk toward FPL’s own published ep_next in proportion to how few minutes a player has on the board. In August a season total is one match, and a projection built on one match ranks a defender who took two speculative shots above Haaland; the shrinkage keeps the board sane until a player has five matches of evidence, after which it is our model alone. The number ranking this board cannot be quietly more optimistic than the one we publish a scorecard for.
Why is effective ownership different from ownership?▾
Effective ownership counts the captain multiplier. A player owned by 30% of your league but captained by most of that 30% hits your rank like a far more popular pick. The board weights by FPL’s own multiplier — 0 benched, 1 starting, 2 captained, 3 under a Triple Captain — because that is what governs the points swing.
Why is mini-league strategy different from overall rank?▾
Overall rank rewards owning the template. Mini-league rank rewards owning what your particular rivals do not. The same squad performs differently in different leagues, which is why the matrix is computed per league rather than read off a global ownership table.