# Solio Analytics — FPL Tutorials & FAQs

> Answers to common Fantasy Premier League (FPL) planning and strategy questions, and how the Solio FPL planner works.

## Planning and Strategy

### What is effective ownership (EO)?

Effective ownership measures how strongly a player's points affect the average score within a particular group of managers. It is calculated by adding together the percentage who started the player, the percentage who captained them, and the percentage who used Triple Captain on them.

For example, an effective ownership of 128% means that each point the player scores raises the sample average by 1.28 points. If you only start them, for every point the player scores you gain 1 point while the average gains 1.28, so their returns are still slightly harmful to your rank. Captaining them gives you 2 points per point scored, while Triple Captain gives you 3, meaning you gain on the average instead.

Source: https://solioanalytics.com/qa#what-is-effective-ownership-eo

### What is risk?

Risk describes how widely your possible outcomes are spread. In FPL, it can be useful to separate this into absolute risk and relative risk.

Absolute risk concerns the range of scores your team could produce on its own. Correlation between players is important here: positively correlated picks, such as a goalkeeper and defender from the same team, tend to succeed or fail together and therefore increase the potential size of your swings. Negatively correlated picks, such as an attacker and an opposing defender, tend to offset each other because if one succeeds, the other usually fails, reducing your absolute risk.

Relative risk concerns how your score may move compared with a particular group of managers. Selecting or captaining high-EO players makes your score more closely resemble the average and reduces the chance of a large rank movement in either direction. Owning low-EO players creates greater relative risk: strong returns can produce larger rank gains, but poor returns can leave you behind managers who backed the more popular options.

Chip usage and timing can also have a large effect on both types of risk. Chips are often played in double gameweeks where there are more fixtures for your players to over- or underperform projections, so absolute risk increases. Using a chip in the same gameweek as most other managers usually produces a similar score profile to the surrounding sample, decreasing relative risk — using it in a different gameweek separates your outcome from theirs, increasing relative risk.

Source: https://solioanalytics.com/qa#what-is-risk

### When should I seek and avoid risk?

Your preferred level of risk should depend on your playstyle and your goals. A manager aiming for an extremely high overall rank may be more open to both absolute and relative risk, as larger swings create more opportunity to separate from the field. A manager whose main goal is a solid finish may prefer lower-risk decisions that keep their score closer to the average.

When playing against the field, if your season is going badly and you are running out of time, lower-EO players, differential captains, positively correlated picks and unusual chip timing can create the larger swings needed to recover. If you are already ahead of or near your target, staying closer to the field protects that position.

Playing to win a mini-league is different because the relevant sample is much smaller and more specific. If chasing, you need differentials from the managers ahead of you — matching their players and captains leaves little opportunity to close the gap. If leading, matching the most important picks of the managers behind you reduces the number of ways they can catch you.

Risk preference should change as the season develops — current position, the size of the gap, time remaining, projected points loss, and whether you care more about overall rank or a mini-league should all influence how much risk to take.

Source: https://solioanalytics.com/qa#when-should-i-seek-and-avoid-risk

### How far ahead should I plan?

A planning horizon needs to be long enough to account for the future consequences of decisions without placing too much importance on projections that are still a long way away. Five gameweeks is towards the shorter end — it captures immediate fixture swings but may miss the longer-term value of holding a player or rolling transfers. Twelve gameweeks is towards the longer end, where changes to fixtures, minutes and team strengths make the later parts of the plan increasingly uncertain. Somewhere around eight to ten gameweeks often provides a useful balance.

The current gameweek also matters. If the horizon reaches gameweek 38, the model can plan directly to the real end of the season. If it finishes earlier, allowing transfers right up to the final week can create a false ending. One way to reduce this is to prevent transfers in roughly the final two gameweeks of the horizon — these act as a buffer, encouraging earlier decisions that remain useful beyond the point where the planned transfers stop.

Source: https://solioanalytics.com/qa#how-far-ahead-should-i-plan

### When should I use chips?

Recommended chip strategy differs between the two halves of the season. In the first half, double gameweeks are very unlikely, so there is little benefit in waiting for one perfect opportunity — look for strong fixture swings and favourable captaincy weeks, keeping rotation risk from European fixtures in mind. One common strategy is an early wildcard aimed at building team value while prices are most volatile.

It is risky to leave chips until the final few gameweeks before they expire — injuries, suspensions and changes in squad status can quickly derail a tightly planned sequence.

In the second half, blanks and double gameweeks create more obvious opportunities for extracting value from chips. But chips should not be preserved for this moment at any cost — if your squad is badly affected by injuries, an early wildcard may be worth more than waiting for an ideal later gameweek.

Goals also affect chip timing: aiming for an extremely high rank can mean identifying when most managers are expected to use each chip and considering a different week, provided the alternative timing does not sacrifice too many projected points.

Source: https://solioanalytics.com/qa#when-should-i-use-chips

### How valuable are free transfers?

The value of a free transfer depends on when it is available and how likely you are to need it. An additional free transfer is more valuable when you have few already banked — moving from one to two gives much more flexibility than moving from four to five. At the upper limit, a free transfer has no value if it would simply be burned rather than used.

Banked transfers are generally very valuable — they buffer against unforeseen injuries and suspensions, and make it easier to reorganise squad structure. They become even more valuable when a major fixture swing, blank or double gameweek is approaching, since several changes may be needed within a short period.

Free transfers are worth less shortly before a planned Wildcard, since the Wildcard can make all necessary changes at once. They also become less valuable near the end of the season, since there are fewer gameweeks remaining in which they can be used — it makes sense to become more willing to spend them on smaller short-term gains as the season ends.

Source: https://solioanalytics.com/qa#how-valuable-are-free-transfers

### When should I take hits?

Hits are often not worthwhile because the new player must recover the four-point cost before the transfer produces any benefit. They are most useful when your team is in a bad state — several injured, suspended or unlikely-to-start players — or when multiple transfers are needed to change the squad's structure. They can also be justified when a transfer has strong immediate upside likely to remain useful for several gameweeks.

If your team looks good to you but Solio repeatedly recommends hits, this usually indicates its projections differ meaningfully from your own beliefs. Check which players are driving the recommendation and adjust their projections where appropriate — the optimiser should reflect your view of the players rather than persuade you to take hits based on assumptions you do not agree with.

Source: https://solioanalytics.com/qa#when-should-i-take-hits

### How important is team value?

Team value matters because a larger budget gives access to stronger combinations of players and greater flexibility between squad structures. Its importance depends heavily on pricing — if there are plenty of strong cheap options, extra money may add very little; if it is difficult to build a good team within budget, even a small increase in team value can be useful.

Building value early in the season can be a valid strategy, since money gained in the opening gameweeks may improve options for the rest of the season. This should only be taken so far, as moving early means giving up information about injuries and team news, which will often have a much larger impact on projected points than some extra team value.

Team value becomes less important later in the season because there is less time for the extra budget to produce points.

Source: https://solioanalytics.com/qa#how-important-is-team-value

### When should I make my transfers?

In most situations, transfers should be made as close to the deadline as reasonably possible. Waiting gives more information about injuries, suspensions and other events affecting minutes, and gives projections time to incorporate the latest market odds. An early transfer may look correct when made but become unnecessary or even harmful before the gameweek begins.

The main reason to move early is price changes — if waiting would likely leave you unable to afford the transfer, acting before a rise or fall may preserve an option that would otherwise disappear. Early moves can also be worthwhile when expecting to build meaningful team value, particularly near the start of the season when prices are most volatile.

This creates a tradeoff between information and team value. The value of waiting should normally take priority, especially with midweek matches or injury concerns — but going early can be justified when expected price movement materially affects future plans and the players involved have low risk of becoming unavailable.

Source: https://solioanalytics.com/qa#when-should-i-make-my-transfers

### What is stochastic planning?

Stochastic planning is a way of making decisions when the future is uncertain. Rather than assuming one set of projections will occur, it considers several possible future scenarios, each with its own probability, and finds a plan that performs well across them.

Future decisions can also vary between scenarios — the solver may plan one transfer if a player becomes injured and a different transfer if they remain fit. Decisions made before the uncertainty is resolved must work reasonably well across all scenarios, while later decisions can adapt to the information that becomes available. This allows the model to recognise the value of waiting for more information and keeping several future options open.

Source: https://solioanalytics.com/qa#what-is-stochastic-planning

### Why use stochastic planning?

A simple way to handle uncertainty would be to average each player's projected points across all possible scenarios, then solve the problem as though those averages were certain. Consider an extreme example: Player A and Player B currently have ordinary, identical projections. In three gameweeks, exactly one of them will suddenly be projected for 100 points, with each player having a 50% chance.

A stochastic model represents this as two scenarios — one where Player A gets the 100-point projection, one where Player B does — and can wait until the uncertainty resolves, then transfer in whichever player receives it. Averaging the scenarios instead gives both players a projection of roughly 50 points, so a deterministic solver treats both as extremely valuable and looks to buy them both, even though only one will ever have the high projection.

Source: https://solioanalytics.com/qa#why-use-stochastic-planning

### Why can a good decision still produce a bad result?

FPL decisions are made under uncertainty. Good projections give a strong estimate of which options are likely to score best, but cannot predict every event in a single gameweek — a player with the better projection can still blank, while a weaker option scores heavily.

Decision quality and result quality are therefore not the same thing. A bad result does not necessarily mean the decision was wrong, just as a good result does not necessarily mean it was right — the decision should be judged using the information and projections available at the time, not only by what happened afterwards.

Source: https://solioanalytics.com/qa#why-can-a-good-decision-still-produce-a-bad-result

## Solio

### How are projected points calculated?

Projections are built in layers, starting with the match and working down to the individual player.

The first layer estimates what each team is likely to do in a given fixture — how many goals they are expected to score and concede — coming primarily from sharp betting markets, fed into the model several times an hour.

The second layer models what each player does within that team. Every player has a modelled underlying rate for anything that earns FPL points — goals, assists, saves, defensive contributions, bonus points, cards — estimated across the roles they might play, using large historical datasets. These rates then interact with the team's projected goal line, clean sheet odds and other fixture-level adjustments, so the same player produces different output depending on the match in front of them.

The third layer converts all of this into points via expected minutes, modelled separately as a distribution rather than a flat number, across different playing roles. Combining the minutes distribution with the player and team components gives the expected points for that fixture.

Source: https://solioanalytics.com/qa#how-are-projected-points-calculated

### Why does Solio use betting markets?

The main use of betting markets is projecting team goal lines. Not all markets are equal — high street bookmakers price for a recreational audience with wide margins, shaded towards where the money is rather than where the information is. Sharp bookmakers and exchanges accept large stakes, run thin margins, and move their prices when someone knows something they do not. Those are the prices worth listening to.

At sharp books, Premier League match markets — spreads, totals, 1x2 — are extremely efficient and automatically incorporate the latest team news and market sentiment. With proper care, these markets can be used to infer a team's projected goals and clean sheet odds.

Match markets are typically only available a gameweek or two ahead. To project further out, Solio uses a rolling team strength model that estimates each team's relative attacking and defensive strength from previous market projections, together with assumptions about home advantage and expected goals per game.

Solio also looks at some player markets as a sense-check on its own player projections, though these are thinner and carry higher margins so are treated with more caution. Match markets give a strong starting point to build the rest of the projection model around, but they are not the last word — Solio also lets you edit team strengths to match your own beliefs.

Source: https://solioanalytics.com/qa#why-does-solio-use-betting-markets

### When should I edit default projections?

Edit projections when you hold a belief that differs from the model's inputs — for example, that a team is stronger or weaker than the market currently reflects, that a player will play a different position or role than assumed, or that you simply disagree with the expected-minutes, goal-share or assist-share figures being used. The optimiser is only as useful as the beliefs it is built on, so bringing your own football knowledge to the inputs is part of using it well.

Source: https://solioanalytics.com/qa#when-should-i-edit-default-projections

### How does Solio choose the starting XI?

Solio selects the starting XI, captain and bench order that maximises projected points for the gameweek, using each player's full expected minutes distribution — the chances of starting, making a short substitute appearance, or missing out entirely, together with points available from automatic substitutions and captaincy moving to the vice-captain.

This can produce choices that look unusual when comparing mean projected points alone. Solio may captain a player with a lower mean projection but a higher expected score given that they play. The vice-captain and first substitute protect against the captain missing out entirely.

A simplified example: Player A is guaranteed 10 points if they play, but plays only 50% of the time, versus Player B who is 100% to play but scores 8 points every time. Mean expected points are 5 and 8 respectively, but captaining Player A with Player B as vice-captain is better, because Player B comes in as vice-captain if Player A doesn't play.

Source: https://solioanalytics.com/qa#how-does-solio-choose-the-starting-xi