The question of whether Celtic should endeavour to keep Elyounoussi was the subject of a podcast with Paul on a Celtic Stat Of Mind. Please enjoy Celtic By Numbers in written and aural form! Method I compared Elyounoussi’s 19/20 season output with the man he ostensibly replaced on the left-hand side of the attack (Sinclair, … [continue reading]
Player Performance
Forster’s A Keeper
On the “A Celtic State of Mind” podcast I discussed whether Celtic should try and sign Forster permanently with Paul John Dykes. You can listen to that here. The Man of Many Returns As Paul pointed out, Forster may be the first Celt to sign four times for the club. His reappearance at the end … [continue reading]
Edouard Squared
By James Dailey As part of my first piece on Celtic by Numbers, I laid out my case as to why Odsonne Edouard’s talents and playing style would be better utilized with a strike partner – particularly one which plays in a more traditionally advanced and preferably central to centre right role. I was mistaken … [continue reading]
Can McGregor Knock Brown for 6?
By James Dailey Saturday’s 5-0 result versus St. Mirren was a continuation of domestic dominance this season. Advanced analytics and related statistics have more value over larger sample sizes, as normal variance in a single game, or even a group of games, can deviate significantly from underlying metrics. Clearly a 5-0 result is better than … [continue reading]
Put Leadership To The Test
By James Dailey I have no doubt that intangible qualities of players exist, and that they can be difficult to measure directly. I’ve been a baseball fan since I was five and have been dabbling in related analytics for over 30 years. Baseball has been on the vanguard of the data and analytics evolution within … [continue reading]
Copenhagen: The Battle of Midfield
By James Dailey As I have made clear in prior pieces, I believe Celtic could field one of the best midfields among the remaining Europa League teams. However, this piece will focus upon what “is” rather than what could be. I will compare our likely central midfield three versus a comparable sample from the other … [continue reading]
Copenhagen: Dream to Reality
By James Dailey Recency bias is the human tendency to mentally overweight memories from the recent pass more so than those from longer ago. Odsonne Edouard has been absolutely brilliant since the winter break, and I documented how brilliant in the recent piece I wrote with an early look at the effectiveness of the 3-5-2 … [continue reading]
The Road to Gdansk
By James Dailey Odsonne Edouard and Fraser Forster give Celtic a chance to win the Club’s second European trophy. There I said it. But…. I want to start by laying out the case as to why I believe Celtic are legitimately competitive at this level. I’ve gone back through the last three European campaigns and … [continue reading]
Deeply Creative
Yesterday I showed how McGregor remains deeply creative despite having an extraordinarily high pass completion rate (94%) and that this did not indicate overly risk averse passing. Today I will complete the picture across the squad as regards deep creative abilities. You should expect some clustering around position which makes the outliers all the more … [continue reading]
McGregor Passes the Test
Whilst no stat is completely meaningless given the right context, it is certainly true to say that passing statistics on there own can reveal little. For example, if I tell you the player with the best Open Play Pass Completion is Simunovic who completes 94% of non-set play passes, you might wonder why this is … [continue reading]