ENG_exp_lineups.R

library(XML)
library(rvest)

exp_matches_lineups=setNames(data.frame(matrix(ncol = 25, nrow = 0)), c("match_date","hometeam","awayteam","h1","h2","h3","h4","h5","h6","h7","h8","h9","h10","h11","a1","a2","a3","a4","a5","a6","a7","a8","a9","a10","a11"))
# Overview of the expected lineups in a league 
exp_url <- paste0("http://www.teamfeed.co.uk/lineups/competition/england/premier-league/expected")

# read html file of page
exp_html <- read_html(exp_url)

# extract all the players on the expected line ups page (multiple teams so take per block of 11)
exp_players <- exp_html %>% html_nodes(".player-name") %>% html_text() %>% as.character()
line_ups <- matrix(exp_players, ncol = 22, byrow = TRUE)

# extract names of the teams playing against each other
team_names <- exp_html %>% html_nodes("h2 a") %>% html_text() %>% as.character()


# all the matches for which the expected line up is given on this page (max 5??)
exp_matches <- exp_html %>% html_nodes(".pitch-header") %>% html_text() %>% as.character()
date_time_match <- as.numeric(gsub("[^\\d]+", "", exp_matches, perl=TRUE))
day <- substr(date_time_match,1,2)
year <- substr(date_time_match,3,6)
months_all=c("January","February","March","April","May","June","July","August","September","October","November","December")
month <- vector(mode = "numeric", length = length(exp_matches))
for (i in 1:length(exp_matches)){
  month[i] <- as.numeric(which(sapply(months_all, function(x) grepl(x, exp_matches[i]))))
}
match_date=format(as.Date(paste(year,month,day, sep = "-"),"%Y-%m-%d"))

exp_matches_lineups <- rbind(exp_matches_lineups,cbind(match_date,team_names,line_ups))