FPL tools: Tips on how to best use Rate My Team for Gameweek 1 planning

There is a vast array of tools available in Fantasy Football Scout’s Premium Members Area that can help Fantasy Premier League (FPL) managers with their planning ahead of the new season.

Having explored the ‘per 90’ search filter and the ‘flat-track bully’ feature previously, today we provide tips on how managers can best make use of the Rate My Team (RMT) tool.

RMT is available only with a Premium Membership – and you can get 20% off by signing up for a full year today.

Sanity Check

The RMT can help guide our team selection by supplying a Gameweek-by-Gameweek points projection for each player.

Raphinha’s point projections for the first six Gameweeks

The estimated values are an average of what we can expect. They include every possibility from the player scoring a hat-trick to being sent off or coming on as a sub.

The RMT factors in all the different ways a player can earn or lose points.

By relying on hard data it gives us a counter to the hype and excitement that can distort our perception. As former FPL winner Simon March recently explained:

Irrational exuberance causes us to rely on unreliable prospects and it prevents us from seeing what is truly in front of us.

– Simon March, How to avoid getting carried away with your GW1 picks

The RMT provides a dispassionate sounding board for our transfer dilemmas.

Bruno or Bru’NO’?

During pre-season the RMT is useful for comparing different drafts – could we really do better without Bruno Fernandes (£12.0m) in our starting XI?

In his interview last Friday, Mark omitted the Portuguese from his team:

Interestingly, despite Mark setting up his team in a 3-5-2 formation, the RMT recommends benching Brentford midfielder Bryan Mbeumo (£5.5m) in favour of defender Vladimír Coufal (£5.0m). 

It gives this 4-4-2 line-up a projected score of 60 points for Gameweek 1 and close to 345 points for opening half dozen fixtures.

Meanwhile Tom’s recent draft features three premium-priced players with Son Heung-min (£10.0m) joining Mohamed Salah (£12.5m) and Fernandes.

Over the first six matches Tom’s side is projected to score a rounded up total of 348 points, nearly three more than Mark’s “BruNO” side.

This is largely due to his three premiums sharing the captaincy:

However, despite faring worse in the medium term, Mark’s Gameweek 1 team outscores Tom’s by 60 points to 58.

The RMT highlights the different approaches between these two elite managers, especially around their attitude to transfers and captaincy. As Mark explains:

I’m getting Mané for the early period, when I think he will play, and then probably getting rid in Gameweek 3 or 4 … people saying “oh don’t book out transfers”, yeah fine but what’s the difference between planning and booking out transfers? 

… there’s nothing wrong with looking ahead and going “right, in Gameweek 3 I could do this, in Gameweek 4 I could do this” – because I do think, hopefully, this season gives us lots of options and, in a season where you’ve got lots of options, I’m hoping that it gives something to the managers who are a bit more gutsy and a bit more dynamic and fluid with their lineups.

– Mark, Team Reveal

Whereas Tom is much more cautious with his premium assets, preferring to use the majority of his transfers on mid-priced midfielders:

You don’t want to get caught out by those guys, those big hitters you’re going to captain, personally I don’t move them around too much. And it’s that position, which is a fourth midfielder slot for me, it’s just a good price point, you can have a bit of fun with it, I don’t get attached to value, you can be aggressive … I think you can get away with it because these players aren’t going to be widely captained.

– Tom, Meet the Manager

Both these managers have been very successful with their contrasting playing styles: Tom’s achieved five top 1,000 finishes to Mark’s ten top 5,000 end-of-season ranks. But, whichever approach you prefer, the RMT can evaluate your squad’s points potential.

Building a draft

To begin, select the the Rate My Team tool from the Members’ Home menu.

Then, from the dropdown, choose ‘Build My Team‘.

Finally, select your players one-by-one from the ‘Add Player’ dropdown.

When you have a valid squad consisting of two goalkeepers, five defenders, five midfielders and three forwards, the RMT will give you weekly totals and suggest a captain, vice-captain and bench.

Once a team is built, it can be saved and shared by bookmarking the URL.

Here are the links to Mark‘s and Tom‘s teams if you want to have a tinker.

The recommended captain pick is indicated by a small ‘c‘ after the Gameweek points projection.

Vice-captain by the letter ‘v‘, and your bench in order of preference: ‘b1‘, ‘b2‘, ‘b3‘, with the letter ‘b‘ highlighting the sub-goalkeeper.

In the example above, despite Michael Obafemi (£4.5m) having a lower projected points tally than Andrew Omobamidele (£4.0m), the RMT suggests putting him ahead of the Norwich defender on the bench.

The reason for this is that Obafemi’s total is reduced because he’s not expected to play. However, in the unlikely scenario that he does feature, he’s the better pick.

Obafemi (left) is given an expected minutes (xM) of just four, this accounts for all possible minutes he’s likely to get. In the Premier League he’s averaged 26 minutes per appearance. Should he play, his underlying points projection (adjP) is better than Omobamidele (right). Rollover a player’s projected score to reveal their adjP and xM.

So the RMT thinks it’s worth putting Obafemi in the second bench spot to make use of his superior underlying points projection (‘adjP’ in the image above) should he play. Otherwise the safer option of Omobamidele will autosub in.

And your substitutes do contribute towards your estimated Gameweek score: points from your bench are calculated based on starting probabilities. The RMT works out how many players on average won’t play, and how many points you could get from your subs.

Under the Hood

The Rate My Team tool was created by Cambridge mathematics graduate Chris Atkinson (aka RMT’s Professor), who used to work for ATASS Sports, a statistical research consultancy providing modelling and analysis for the sports industry.

The RMT uses three main components to arrive at its points projections:

• The team model
• Player rates
• Playing probabilities

The team model works out, among other things, the amount of goals it expects a team to score in a match. It considers the strength of a team’s attack against the quality of the opposition’s defence.

The percentage chance of a clean sheet is predicted along with details such as save points and own goal probabilities.

The RMT also considers that yellow and red cards are more likely to go to the side doing more defending.

The overarching element, the thing that’s holding it together, is our team numbers, which we think are really really good evidenced by the fact that they are so close to the betting market.

– Chris Atkinson, creator of the RMT

Within each team, player rates are assigned to every aspect of points scoring including goals, assist and bonus points.

This is determined by a player’s position on the pitch and historical performance – if they have scored lots of goals in the past the model thinks they are more likely to score goals in future.

The final aspect of the RMT asks: how likely is a player to get on the pitch?

To get the best answer to that question requires some manual input.

Human touch

Every week we come up with the short term probabilities of players starting.

Neale‘s predicted line-ups, rated the best and most reliable team predictions for FPL, are crucial for arriving at our expected minute values.

On Fantasy Football Scout’s site they go into some depth on the latest news and manager news conferences which is a clear indication of the time and attention to detail that they put into their predictions and this is paying off with their results.

– Footstock

We also tell the RMT about suspensions, injuries, and a change in penalty takers.

A lot of work goes into keeping the RMT informed of the latest developments and its predictions will inevitably be more accurate closer to the deadline.

The Assistant Manager

All this knowledge combines to make the RMT every FPL manager’s perfect assistant.

You can use it to work out defensive rotations, build Free Hit and Wildcard squads, and help you find the best value players.

Filter players and select your Gameweek range

The ‘Players‘ section of the RMT assesses all Premier League players and lists them by expected points total. Fantasy Football Scout subscribers can also choose to order by Gameweek, price or value (total points divided by price).

Filters may be applied for club, position, and price. It’s even possible to limit the range to specific Gameweeks.

Best value defenders over the opening four Gameweeks

Once the season starts, instead of having to build a team from scratch, Premium Members will be able to enter their FPL IDs to add their current squads.

When making transfers, managers will see a before and after points tally. Is that four-point hit likely to pay off?

Points estimates Before and After Transfers

Throughout the campaign, the Rate My Team tool can help you form an opinion about players and keep you grounded in reality. It might be called Fantasy football but that doesn’t mean our players are going to get double-digit hauls every week.