Why the official FDR is misleading, and what to use instead

What FDR actually measures

The official rating assigns one number from two to five per fixture per team, based largely on prior standing. It does not distinguish between attacking and defensive difficulty, it updates slowly, and it treats a fixture against a side that concedes constantly but also scores constantly as merely average.

For a colour-coded planner that is fine. For a decision it is not.

Difficulty is two numbers, not one

Every fixture has an attacking difficulty — how hard it is for your player to score or assist — and a defensive difficulty — how likely his team is to keep a clean sheet. They are frequently opposite. A match against an open, high-scoring side is easy for your forward and terrible for your defender.

A model that simulates the fixture gets this for free, because it draws goals for both teams separately from attack and defence strength.

Position sensitivity

• —Forwards care about the opponent's expected goals conceded and their own team's share of chances
• —Attacking defenders care about clean-sheet probability first and their own attacking involvement second
• —Goalkeepers can profit from a hard fixture through save points, inverting the usual logic
• —Midfielders sit between the two and are the most sensitive to bonus-point competition within their own team

Form and strength drift

Team strength is not fixed for a season. A side that loses its first-choice centre-back pairing or changes manager can move a full tier within a month. Difficulty estimates should update on rolling recent performance rather than sitting on preseason expectations until Christmas.

Equally, do not overreact: three matches is not a new baseline. Blending recent results into a longer-run strength estimate is the same Bayesian idea applied at team level.

Fixture runs, not single fixtures

Transfers are made for runs. Sum the simulated expected points over the next four to six gameweeks for the specific player rather than counting green squares, because a run of three easy fixtures and one brutal one nets out differently depending on which is first.

Home and away splits matter more than most planners suggest — home advantage is worth a meaningful fraction of a goal, and it compounds across a run.