Whilst Celtic won again at the weekend to maintain a gap at the top of the SPFL Premiership, the manner of the 1-0 defeat of Ross County irked many in the support. A failure to build on a first minute Alistair Johnston deflected strike meant some nervy moments at the end of the match as … [continue reading]
Manager Performance
Shot Conversion and System vs Individual
There are only nine occasions a Celtic player has achieved 20% or more conversion rate from all shots since my records started in 2014-15. On two of those occasions, the player was Kyogo Furuhashi and three of those occasions were last season. Here are the times a 20% all-shot conversion rate has been achieved (midfielders … [continue reading]
Cohesion and Perception
I wrote recently about how the direct speed of the SPFL Premiership has risen markedly according to Opta. The finding was an indirect outcome of countering the “slow play” trope flung at Brendan Rodgers. It seems the league is getting the ball forwards faster, as are Celtic, but relatively less so than the rest of … [continue reading]
Plotting the Difference
One of the standard metrics I track is the difference between Celtic’s expected goals scored and conceded. The rule of thumb is that the higher this value, the less likely that normal football variance factors such as opposition goalkeepers, poor finishing, bad luck, and refereeing, will impact the likely result adversely. A differential of around … [continue reading]
Nawrocki and the Direct Command
The very good @StewartRoss89 on X posted in the Celtic Way about how Maik Nawrocki has already demonstrated impressive line-breaking passing abilities. Nawrocki has only completed the equivalent of 4.04 worth of 90 minutes so well short of the 900 needed for a deeper dive. But it caused me to look at his pack passing … [continue reading]
The “Slow & Ponderous” Fallacy
A comment I see often referring to Celtic under Brendan Rodgers can be summarised as “slow and ponderous build up”. Someone even sent me this from the Opta data driven The Analyst site to illustrate. Apologies this will look very small on a ‘phone! Follow the link above to browse more comfortably. Celtic are firmly … [continue reading]
Why Rodgers’ Approach Is Right In Europe
With the European campaign effectively over for another season, the recriminations have begun. Everyone has got it in the neck from someone. To my observation, you select the party you like the least and heap the blame on them. Cognitive Dissonance rules ok? As mentioned on this week’s Huddle Breakdown, I’d like to call out … [continue reading]
Making Sense of Space
I found a nice feature on Sofascore today – average player positions. Average position obviously doesn’t mean that was where they always stood, and it doesn’t mean that is where they are always relative to teammates. Nevertheless, without complex tracking data it is the best we have to discern a semblance of shape. I wanted … [continue reading]
Finding Forward Solutions
One of the issues against Kilmarnock was the inability to convert good field positions into chances. Celtic were relying on playing through their wide players, or linking with Kyogo Furuhashi dropping deep, or the number eights creating from the centre. Compared to the first two games of the season, Kyogo did not get on the … [continue reading]
Potter and xG Philosophy
90% of data analysis is cribbing good ideas from others, and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise! In that spirit! This tweet from @eduinlatimer caught my eye this morning not just for the excellent topic and analysis but for the reaction amongst other data analysts. Ostensibly it is noting a potential trend whereby Graham Potter … [continue reading]