Our gameweek 1 squad: B.Fernandes captains a 3-5-2
The engine's own 15 — a 3-5-2 projecting 65.92 points with the captain doubled, picked on six-gameweek horizon value, not one-week form.
This is the team we actually field, and it stands or falls in public. The engine optimises expected points over a discounted six-gameweek horizon on market-implied scoring rates, so every pick is a horizon bet rather than a one-fixture spike. The XI lines up 3-5-2 and projects 57.07 points before the armband; with B.Fernandes doubled that becomes 65.92.
No Haaland, by conviction rather than oversight. At his price the model wants the budget spread across three lines, and we do not pay a premium for an ownership shield. If the crowd is right about him, the consensus XI on this site owns him and will collect the evidence.
Registered captain: B.Fernandes, with 17.70 projected points doubled. Registered vice: Thiago, with 11.78 projected points doubled. The highest captain projection in this registered XI is B.Fernandes at 17.70. Registered roles and projection rankings are shown separately.
The bench, in order: 1. Sánchez, 2. N.Williams, 3. Calvert-Lewin, 4. Shaw. It is deliberately thin — the first name is the backup keeper, and the spend sits in the XI where the points are.
The data
| # | Player | xPts | Ceiling | Captain EV | Pts/m |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Raya ARS | 4.63 | 8.17 | 9.25 | 0.77 |
| 2 | Virgil LIV | 4.28 | 10.97 | 8.57 | 0.66 |
| 3 | Senesi TOT | 4.35 | 10.55 | 8.69 | 0.72 |
| 4 | Tarkowski EVEDifferential | 4.67 | 11.16 | 9.33 | 0.78 |
| 5 | B.Fernandes MUN | 8.85 | 19.70 | 17.70 | 0.74 |
| 6 | Ndiaye EVE | 5.13 | 15.04 | 10.27 | 0.86 |
| 7 | Gibbs-White NFO | 4.83 | 13.53 | 9.67 | 0.60 |
| 8 | E.Le Fée SUNDifferential | 4.79 | 13.02 | 9.59 | 0.80 |
| 9 | Szoboszlai LIV | 4.71 | 12.49 | 9.43 | 0.67 |
| 10 | Thiago BRE | 5.89 | 14.16 | 11.78 | 0.74 |
| 11 | Watkins AVL | 4.94 | 13.15 | 9.88 | 0.62 |
| 12 | Sánchez CHEDifferentialBench | 3.14 | 7.75 | 6.29 | 0.63 |
| 13 | N.Williams NFOBench | 4.10 | 10.80 | 8.20 | 0.82 |
| 14 | Calvert-Lewin LEEBench | 3.97 | 11.68 | 7.95 | 0.66 |
| 15 | Shaw MUNBench | 3.98 | 7.99 | 7.95 | 0.88 |
Bottom line
3-5-2, B.Fernandes (c), Thiago vice — 65.92 projected with the armband applied.
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How we get these numbers. Market odds (de-vigged) → Dixon-Coles scorelines → 50k Monte-Carlo simulations, scored on the official Fantasy Premier League points table. Ceiling = the average of a player's best 15% of our 50,000 simulations — the score when his best realistic games happen, not a fantasy cap. Every figure here is machine-readable at /api/fpl/gw1/our-squad.json.