Scoring philosophy

Every FPL tool gives you the same thing: a 1-to-5 star rating pulled straight from the official app. Gaffer IQ builds its own rating from scratch, and answers a sharper question: not "is this fixture hard," but "is this fixture hard for this specific player, doing this specific job, right now." FPL's rating calls a match "easy" because the opponent's bottom of the table. Gaffer IQ checks whether your striker's opponent specifically has leaky centre-backs, whether that team plays completely differently at home versus away, and whether their rating is outdated and overrated. Several angles, calculated separately, then combined, because "hard fixture" and "hard fixture for a winger" are different questions, and most tools collapse them into one.

The part that makes it trustworthy is how it handles weight and confidence. Not every signal gets an equal vote; recent form and team strength carry real weight; head-to-head history barely moves the needle, because a rivalry from three managers ago isn't strong evidence today. And when the data's too thin (a promoted team with no track record) the model doesn't fake confidence. It knows the difference between "no strong opinion" and "bad fixture," and never confuses the two. Most tools will happily hand you a confident number standing on almost nothing.

Every score also comes with its reasoning attached — you can see exactly what pushed it up or down. It's not "trust us," it's "here's the case." In one line: this isn't a smarter-looking star rating; it's a tool that tells you where an edge is coming from, and how much to believe it.