| Player | Club | Pos | Price | GW35 | GW36 | GW37 | GW38 | xP total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| B.Fernandes (C) | MUN | MID | £10.4m | 6.5 | 6.5 | 6.5 | 5.7 | 25.1 |
| Gibbs-White (VC) | NFO | MID | £7.6m | 6.4 | 6.4 | 5.7 | 6.4 | 24.9 |
| Casemiro | MUN | MID | £5.8m | 5.9 | 5.9 | 5.9 | 5.3 | 23.1 |
| Mateta | CRY | FWD | £7.6m | 4.2 | 9.5 | 4.7 | 4.2 | 22.6 |
| O'Reilly | MCI | DEF | £5.1m | 4.6 | 9.3 | 3.6 | 4.6 | 22.1 |
| Haaland | MCI | FWD | £14.5m | 4.3 | 8.6 | 3.8 | 4.3 | 21.0 |
| Lacroix | CRY | DEF | £5.1m | 3.5 | 9.1 | 4.5 | 3.5 | 20.6 |
| Bowen | WHU | FWD | £7.8m | 5.0 | 4.5 | 5.0 | 5.6 | 20.1 |
| Gabriel | ARS | DEF | £7.2m | 4.1 | 4.1 | 6.0 | 4.1 | 18.4 |
| Guéhi | MCI | DEF | £5.1m | 3.7 | 7.3 | 2.8 | 3.7 | 17.5 |
| Raya | ARS | GKP | £6.0m | 3.1 | 3.1 | 4.5 | 3.1 | 13.8 |
Optimization picks the 11 starters that maximize total expected points (xP) over the lookahead window, subject to FPL Wildcard rules: £85m starter budget (heuristic — leaves ~£15m for 4 cheap bench fillers in a real squad of 15), max 3 players per club, and a valid formation (1 GK + 3-5 DEF + 2-5 MID + 1-3 FWD).
xP per player per GW is computed by FPLExpectedPoints.compute_player_xp()
using config/xp_weights.json (version xp-v1) — a blend of
season points-per-90 and recent form, scaled by minutes likelihood, fixture ease (FDR),
and double / blank flags. Players with chance_next == 0 or below the
configured minutes / start-probability floors are excluded.
Captain = highest-xP starter (counted twice in the headline total, matching FPL scoring). VC = second-highest. The lookahead is min(5, GWs remaining to GW38); xp_weights.json v1 was tuned for a 5-GW horizon, so longer windows are downweighted by caps, shorter ones (end of season) are auto-trimmed.