The points raised in this blog were discussed on Episode 4 of The Huddle Breakdown. Please follow, share and watch/listen.
We are now in a place where surrendering a 2-goal lead and conceding another 4 goals is considered “excellent at times” and “a lot to be positive about” by Lennon. Results wise, Celtic’s current run is unprecedented in modern times with 2 wins in 11 and 27 conceded with 1 clean sheet.
But we are about performances! So, what does the key performance indicators say about Celtic this season?
Performance Indicators
It is convention for media to summarise a match into a stat box. For example, the BBC give you shots on target, total shots, possession, corners, fouls.
When I summarise a match for myself into a virtual “Stat Box” I use the following:
KPI | Rationale |
Possession | Indicative of game and ball control and provides in sight into style (possession-based; counter attacking etc) |
PPDA | Pass Per Defensive Action indicates pressing effectiveness both for and against |
Total Impect | Indicates the extend teams are able to play through opponents – a score of forwards passes and how many opponents you take out the game. |
Total Shots | You won’t score if you don’t shoot! Simply shot volume |
In Box Possession | The number of possessions or touches in the opponent’s box as this indicates you are getting close to goal! |
xNPG | Expected Goals excluding penalties. An indicator of the quality of the shots taken and how many goals you would expect given a “normal” outcome. |
xA | The quality of the chances created. Irrespective of the shot outcome, what is the quality of the chance the passes provided. |
I find reducing a game to those 7 KPIs tends to give an accurate summary. Others may disagree or add / subtract from this list. That’s fine.
Celtic’s Performance
Let’s get to it. Simply, I’ve compared last season (treble and progress in Europe) with this.
First the good news. Celtic are still largely possession dominant, having 63% of the ball across all competitions (66% in the SPFL).
But as the other stats show, this tells you something, but not a lot! PPDA is up 6%. This means Celtic are making a few more passes per opposition defensive action. This would tally with Lennon’s desire for the team to be more “front foot” and forward orientated. Similarly, Impect up 3% means the side are getting the ball forward and taking opponents out the game to a slightly higher degree. And in isolation those would be highly encouraging numbers.
But that is where the good news ends.
Shot volume is down 11%. Possession in the box down 21% and consequently the quality of shots taken is down 20%. Not surprisingly the quality of chances created is also down, 18%. Remember: football like many sports is a game of small margins. Movements in these KPIs of a few % points either way would pique my interest in normal times. These aren’t normal times and Celtic’s attacking performance in general, has collapsed.
Opposition Performance
Let’s look at the other side of the equation. How are the opposition performing against Celtic? Again, this covers all matches in all competitions.
Essentially, we see the opposite trend.
Celtic are easier to play against. How do we know this? The opposition are completing 7% more passes per Celtic Defensive Action, and their Impect average is up 12%. The latter means that the opposition are playing through Celtic’s lines, taking players out the game, to a greater degree (up 12%).
There is a consequential uptick in opposition shot volume (up 8%) and they are getting touches in Celtic’s box a whopping 20% more than last season.
Most worrying is that opposition xNPG (i.e. WITHOUT all these penalties Celtic have been conceding) is up 23%.
Finally, chance creation quality is 19% higher than last season’s bench mark.
What Does This Mean?
As mentioned, small changes to any of these KPIs would be noteworthy. These are huge shifts in performance and consider: this is the whole season not just the current bad run (in fact for full transparency this DOES NOT include Sparta Prague away (1-4), Ross County (0-2) or AC Milan away (2-4)). In reality, today, these numbers are probably worse.
We are seeing a 40% downward swing for Celtic in some key metrics including xNPG.
If this were to be translated into points (and performance impacts results – oh yes!) instead of challenging for the title in the SPFL, Celtic would be scrapping with Aberdeen and Hibernian for 2nd / 3rd place. Last season, Celtic might just have pipped Motherwell and Aberdeen to 2nd by these performances.
As @jucojames said on the Huddle Breakdown pod, once you get a game xG differential lower than 1 (i.e. Celtics xG is < 1 greater that the oppositions) then, given the nature of a low scoring sport and the multitude of things that can happen by chance in a football match, each game becomes a bit of a lottery. We are now in that place.
Given the disparity in wages and squad value (despite what some learned folk may tell you, this does impact outcomes quite considerably!), that is a calamitous fall off.
Conclusion
Like Celtic, there is no defence against the performance data. The need for change is unanswerable.
What that change is will often depend on your cognitive biases (pro/anti Lennon, pro/anti board, pro/anti the coaches) but muddle along and do nothing cannot be the answer.
nick66 says
Like always CBN you present the raw data. This is data i cannot express as you do. However the sad fact is that your data and my watching the team and performance seam to concur, IE, we are p1sh. The regression under Neil’s tenure is devastating to say the least, at best catastrophic. I truly believe that Lenny took the job believing he could not fail given the squad inherited, however the fact remains, it is what the heir does with the legacy that counts and unfortunately, this time the outcome is dire. Neil Lennon to me will always be remembered so fondly for his past exploits in the hoops, but his current situation is taking it to an all time low. Keep on doing what you do best CBN and I hope the next stats you are presenting are much improved.
SFTB says
Well explained, as always.
Are there any indications as to why we are “easier” to play against?
Fewer successful tackles?
Fewer defnsive headers won?
And is it any different when we go 2 up front?
I apreciate the work (not a podcast type guy though)
celticbynumbers@btinternet.com says
For me, it starts with poor organisation – it’s too loose. The midfield config is all wrong – not enough energy and legs. Add in the usual centre back injuries and striker unavailability. Like any complex system it is many things. Fundamentally the team has no discernible identity and style of play. How would you feel if your boss changed approach every few days? Then the players lose confidence (Sparta away) and then it’s pretty much over. It’s a disorganised mess and the harder folk try following daft instructions (more crosses! more long shots! get it forward quicker!) the worse it gets. It’s way beyond the need for change.
Pat meechan says
The sad thing is when we get corner kick/free kicks due to the poor execution of them were are more likely to lose a.goal instead of scoring ourselves
Devine says
The warning signs were there since Cluj least season and the bizarre decision to play MacGregor at LB and the wider calamitous defending that night. But then we went onto comfortably beat Rangers at Ibrox a few weeks later with solid performances from Boli, Julian and Elhamed. We effectively played Sevco at their own game and beat them very easily. Its true to say the Huns have improved considerably since then and we have regressed dramatically. The players look utterly bereft of confidence and I don’t think that’s just down to losing games and not having clear instructions from the coaching staff- I also think its part of Lennon’s poor man-management. I’ll give a few examples: the recent dropping of Barkas for Bain, rather than dropping Duffy for example ( which he’s subsequently done)- sure Barkas hasn’t been great but its hardly his fault he’s exposed as much as he has been and obviously results since have shown he wasn’t the problem. But the poor guys confidence must have been shot to pieces. How many times has he thrown the players under the bus this season? After the Ferencvaros disaster. The defeat against Rangers and the recent references to laziness etc. Lennon’s decision making has been suspect on a number of occasions, notwithstanding the Cluj game, but also the LC FInal with Morgan up front, Ferencvaros with Christie up front or Welsh behind Frimpong against Sevco ( which they exploited the whole of the second half as an out ball)- did anyone, players included, know the formation against Copenhagen at home last season? The persistence with Frimpong at RB (which every team with height exploits including most devastatingly against Sparta Prague) or the one up front against St Johnstone? He dropped MacGregor for a 35 Scott Brown against Ross County, dropped Elyounoussi against them as well and went with a more defensive minded player in Laxalt AT HOME against ROSS COUNTY! And to compound things he brought off Ajeti for Duffy when we were one nil down! Stubbornly playing Brown against high quality teams when we all know the pace has went from his legs for the highest level. Christie taking all the set-pieces despite the obvious results. The decision making is utterly baffling at times.
Good players now look poor and devoid of any confidence at all: MacGregor and Christie look like shadows of themselves this season, Ajeti has virtually no service and yet is repeatedly substituted, Elhamed looked solid when he came into the team, as he and Bitton do for Israel, but he now looks fragile, Elyounoussi looks lost to what his role is in the team, and the biggest indictment is that Edouard looks like an imposter of the player he’s been for the last two seasons. And now an initially excellent Laxalt is beginning to visibly lose his confidence.
Sevco are the opposite: they signed Balogun, a free transfer journeyman from Championship giants Wigan, Joe Aribo, Brandon Barker, Arfield, Glen Kamara, Ryan Jack, Davis, Goldson, all competent enough players, but nowhere near good enough to get into the Celtic squad and yet they all now look like better players than any of ours. Of course confidence is a huge element in football. Tavernier, a usually reliable poor defender, has now transmogrified into Cafu and Kent is now Cruyff. Kent is not a better player than Elyounoussi. Goldson is not a better defender than Julian. Ajer or Bitton or Duffy are no worse than Helander or Balogun. Morelos is not suddenly a better forward than Edouard. Jack or Davis Aribo or Arfield better than MacGregor, Christie, Ntcham, Rogic, or Barker better than Turnbull. Its amazing what confidence can do to a player and to a team. But this is about more than just confidence its about shape, structure, consistency and energy. We have none of these factors and it wouldn’t matter what players we brought in if those elements are missing from the organization of the team. Sevco’s personnel has become almost irrelevent now as the system (the geggenpress or whatever they play) comes first and the players are secondary: the effectively play with six midfielders guarding the defence when they don’t have the ball and have four of five players supporting either Defoe or Morelos when they do have possession. Everyone knows what they have to do and play to instructions. And the have ENERGY. They have outworked us in nearly every game for the last season and half with the exception of the easy win at Ibrox last season when we played their system against them. We have no energy, in particular in midfield. Our midfield do not support the forwards enough and they do not sufficiently prtoect the defence. Surely in light of how diabolical we’ve been, especially in midfield, where Brown and Rogic have often been so pedestrian, the likes of Soro or Turnbull could have brought some energy? Bitton or Ajer brought in for their ‘true’ position in midfield for Brown, especially in European games? Even Henderson or Connell could have been given some game time against Ross County such has been the paucity of our performances. But instead Lenny went with the usual suspects and we repeated the same patterns we’ve seen all season.
What worried me most about the loss to Ferencvaros was how easily we, as a truly great club, meekly accepted such abject mediocrity- where is the ambition? Lenny should not have survived us crashing out of the CL. He definitely should never have survived the 4-1 home defeat to the merely competent Sparta Prague. The manager is far too easily out thought by experienced coaches such as with Cluj, Copenhagen, Sparta or Ferencvaros. Another damning criticism of the coaching staff is that they still haven’t solved how to beat Sevco considering they play the same way in every game- and yet we still haven’t figured a way of adapting to their system despite nearly two years to do so.
As I said before on this site we need a massive cultural paradigm shift at the Club from top to bottom and that includes Desmond and Lawwell. I have the suspicion they would come up with Martin O’Neill and Roy Keane as a fixer. Why? Because of the Irish link. We need to move away from this ‘Celtic-minded’ culture and toward a new more inclusive and modern culture. Everyone who comes here becomes Celtic minded anyway. A club our size and with our global reach and historical relevance should be trying to recruit managers and coaches of the calibre of Massimiliano Allegri, Maurizio Sarri or Luciano Spalleti, and if not then at least of the level of Marcelino, Leonardo Jardim, a Ralf Rangnick or Eddie Howe or maybe even the likes of Valverde- why not? The only thing is we would have to back them financially and are this board capable of that level of ambition. I would even be reasonably happy if they went with the likes of Laurent Blanc or Philip Cocu (despite what happened at Derby), or even Klinsmann- something left field like the huns did with Gerrard. We’ve missed out of Copenhagen’s Solbakken whose went to Norway. What even of Arsene Wenger- bring him in as a Head of Football? Petrescu or Rebrov both out thought Lennon with far less resources- what would they do with more?
Whoever comes in needs to wipe the whole slate clean in terms of coaching staff (if that is possible- is it with the kind of interreference you seem to get with the Board?) and rewrite a new culture that eradicates all the old patterns and repeated failures of the past.
Sorry the long rant! I think I needed to get that out of my system!
Gerry Quinn says
Absolutely 100% spot on. Me and my mates been rambling on the same for months, you however have managed to express it brilliantly
Dennis McLaughlan says
What an absolutely wonderful post. So precise. H H.