Feeling Good About Pressing

During Celtic’s 3-2 Derby win against The Rangers on Saturday, my main focus when watching was the number of poor passes from Celtic.

This was certainly borne out by the overall passing data as Celtic completed 82% of all passes compared to 87% average for all games this season.

That is actually the lowest of the season. However, it was exactly the same as in the 4-0 home wain against the same opposition in September 2022! Stats, eh?

Post Game

Since the game, as well as the shamefully coordinated, vicious and abusive content aimed at the referee from fan media, the Ibrox club, friendly pundits and friendly mainstream media, comes the predictable soothing, feel-good nonsense that everything will be alright. Here is a perfect example of wishful narrative.

Much of this narrative is driven by the notion somehow Celtic were “knocked off their stride” by an aggressive press.

And to some extent that is true. Celtic’s passing was sometimes woeful. Although, in the case of Aaron Mooy, that seemed to be due to personal fitness rather than any pressing from the opposition.

Nevertheless, Celtic, in the first half especially, seemed limited to recycling the ball between Cameron Carter-Vickers and Carl Starfelt. They completed 100 of the 225 open play passes the Champions managed in that half.

So, any merit in that hypothesis that Celtic were the ones knocked off their stride?

Passing Stats

Simple passing stats are often derided but like anything, given context they help in forming a narrative without ever being a sliver bullet.

Strangely Celtic attempted more long passes – 20 out of 50 were successful – compared to 17/41 success rate on long balls for The Rangers. Celtic typically attempt 42 and The Rangers 54, so that suggests the away side made Celtic change their approach.

So, there was some stylistic adjustment by Celtic to break the press, especially in the second half when Carter-Vickers in particular attempted a number of long passes.

However simple pass completion suggests it was the challengers who were more knocked off their stride as they completed only 77% of all passes compared to a season average of 86%.

As mentioned above, Celtic’s pass completion was 82%, a season low, compared to an average of 87%.

Pack Turnovers

An indicator of press strength can be gleaned by looking at Pack Turnover scores. This measures the number of players that are taken out the game when a player loses the ball.

For example, when Alistair Johnston gifted the ball to Ryan Kent in the 84^th minute, eight of his colleagues were then caught wrong side of the ball and he presented The Rangers with a 3v2 counter attack which they butchered due to bad decision making. He racked up a sorry -17 Pack Turnover score for that one.

Let’s look at the “top” turnover terrors on the day:

An undercooked Mooy heads this sorry tale for Celtic with a score of -41 on turnover impact. Next come the Celtic full backs which suggests some stress on the back line.

Here is the same view for the opposition:

James Tavernier led the way with the most impactful turnovers scoring -40.

But note that his defensive colleagues including anchor Ryan Jack are next in the list.

Indeed, if you add up the turnover impact score of the back four, it comes to -109 and if you include the two more defensive minded midfielders (Nicolas Raskin and Ryan Jack) it is -144.

If we do the same for Celtic’s back four it is -59 with “props” to Carl Starfelt for managing 0!

If we include the back four and two more defensive midfielders in Mooy and Callum McGregor it is -114.

On that basis, it seems Celtic put more pressure where it matters and forced more turnovers amongst The Rangers defensive players (-144) than vice versa (-114).

Indeed, two of Celtic’s goals came from high pressing forcing errors – the third goal was due to an accumulation of “negative” Blues passes forced by Celtic’s press.

Summary

The Rangers front players certainly put in their work as far as number of pressures goes although Matt O’Riley led the game in individual presses (38).

However, the away team could not force errors out of the Celtic back like and when they did, they were not punished due to poor decision making and finishing.

In particular Starfelt and to a lesser extent, Carter-Vickers, were quite press resistant.

Meanwhile, Celtic forced many more impactful turnovers on The Rangers defensive unit, and having superior creative players in the final third, were able to score two clinching goals off those situations.

Sorry if that does not make you feel good (not sorry).