The mid term reports focus now on the midfield and wingers. I covered Brown in Brown: A Never Ending Story as he has a unique role in the side. Let’s now consider the rest of the midfield.
PS I will include Brown in this for completeness.
Celtic’s midfield and wide attack has largely been about Brown, McGregor, Christie and Forrest. A Scottish quartet remarkably. Morgan, Johnston and Elyounoussi have all contributed about a 3rd of those lot and Ntcham half. Sinclair doesn’t have enough minutes to count (sad face).
Defensive Performance
Let’s start at the back and work our way forward. It’s generally a nine-man defending game these days so defensive actions count. Position will be more relevant here but these are the key metrics:
What I would draw your attention to from this is:
- Brown and his unique (regressing) role
- McGregor is defensively stronger this season
- Hayes’s numbers reflect his left back stints more than anything
- Christie’s numbers are impressive for a number 10 or advanced winger
- Forrest has strangely regressed defensively
- Ntcham’s numbers reflect his stints at 10 (but see Christie for what is possible)
Ball Progression
The following compares Pack Passing (ability to get the ball forward through opponents) with Dribble Progressions (Pack Dribbles plus Progressive Runs).
Whilst no one is in the Weak / Weak category (Elyounoussi at a stretch), the other main conclusions to draw are:
- Hayes looks really good by this view – strong in passing out from left back (if not pass completion overall) and good at ball progressions by dribbling
- No surprises that Johnston and Morgan are effective with ball at feet
- Christie is bang in the middle – not faint praise – he just does everything pretty well
- McGregor has overtaken Ntcham as the Pack Pass king – this is a reflection of McGregor’s deeper role and Ntcham’s more forward position
- But McGregor should be strong in both categories
- As I showed yesterday Brown is executing more Pack Passes
- Forrest – despite the goals, not much going on here again – strange
Chance Involvement
The next chart plots Open Play Chances Created per 90m (Assists + Key Passes) with Secondary Assists 90 (passes to the person who set up the shot). If I include chances created from corners and free kicks, Christie would be in his own little island near the top left. So, let’s consider a level playing field and only include Open Plan chances.
The conclusions?
- Given his limited playing time, Rogic is not a long way from Christie, which surprised me.
- I feel like I am always having to justify Ntcham. Are you starting to get why he has to play?
- Forrest (finally!) is strong on chance creation and this is reflected in his burgeoning assist total
- Johnston is a little disappointing as is the direct Elyounoussi
- Morgan – well you can see for all the endeavour, there is limited output
Assists / xA
Filtering out Key Passes and concentrating on Assists versus Expected Assists (xA), gives us this picture:
The lowdown.
- I’m worried by this. All the major creative talents are overperforming their xA – i.e. getting more assists than the chance quality would suggest. It is a problem as it is unlikely to be sustainable.
- In particular Johnston has the highest Assist90 rate yet his xA is nowhere near that expected. Elyounoussi likewise.
- Forrest is leading the charts with 16 assists but he is also overperforming his xA by quite a bit.
- The one with the most realistic contribution is strangely Rogic. He only has 3 assists though.
- McGregor has dropped off alarmingly – Celtic are just not getting him into threatening enough positions.
Goals and xG
And we now compare Goals with Expected Goals (xG) in a similar manner:
Sadly, a similar picture. All major contributors are exceeding expectations which is difficult to maintain.
Forrest, exceptionally, is round and about his xG contribution.
Johnston once again is massively over achieving. He is either due a sobering bump to the mean, or he is Messi incarnate. What are the odds?
To hammer home the point, here are xG and xA combined into Scoring Contribution and xSC (Expected Scoring Contribution):
Normally some players are ahead of expected and some behind. Having all your major contributors ahead of expected would worry me that so far they have got better outcomes that they could expect and unless chance quality improves that will drop off.
If you look back at 18/19 then Forrest and Christie (now on penalties) are the only ones that have really improved their xSC over last season.
The overriding message here is of potentially unsustainable overperformance and lack of squad improvement in attacking output from midfield.
Conclusion
Celtic have seen many changes in the midfield configuration this season. The net result of that has been that McGregor has been neutered whilst Christie has flourished as a 10. Ntcham remains vital to the side for his deep creative abilities.
But I am concerned that despite the eye-catching numbers like Christie 17 goals and 15 assists and Forrest 14 goals and 16 assists. And despite Johnston and Elyounoussi having amazing per 90m averages, the whole thing does not look sustainable. Not all the midfield can overperform their xA and xG over the whole of a season you would think.
Celtic need to carefully consider their midfield configuration to ensure Ntcham is creating a bit deeper, McGregor is allowed to contribute more in an attacking sense, and that there is some consistency to attacking shape.
I think Lenny needs to be more flexible with players and formation, depending on who we play at any one time. Against Sevco we can’t play Johnston, Forrest, Boli, to a lesser extent Rogic, especially at Ibrox, as they offer very little defensive cover for team-mates- we’re effectively a man down when we don’t have the ball if the likes of Forrest plays against Sevco. I still can’t understand why we’ve not sussed this out yet and yet we keep repeating the same mistake- have we all collectively been guilty of underestimating Sevco? They’re a decent team with ordinary players on paper: Jack, Davis, Kamara, Tavernier, Katic, Goldson, Kent , Aribo, are all fairly solid performers but no better than ordinary- but as a team they work and press very hard- Lenny needs to match up our energy with theirs. Fire with fire. If we outwork them we win, its that simple- we have the best players we just need to work at making space for them and getting on the ball to hurt Sevco.
Gerard has sussed Lenny out as he knows the lineup of the Celtic team even before he’s picked his own team- Lenny’s predictability in this regard is our soft underbelly. The rub is that Gerard is very predictable as well and although his present lineup, style and formation is his greatest strength, its also his greatest weakness- he can’t play any other way or change it as he simply doesn’t have the creative personnel at his disposal to play Celtic at their own game/ hence we see this blood and bluster battle fever shite Sevco play to nullify our game- we cancel out their snot and guts game with equal or greater energy and we have their number. The NY game against Sevco should have been a midfield of Frimpong- Brown- McGregor-Ntcham- Christie/ with Bauer behind Frimpong for height, solidity/ and Taylor behind Christie- if gaps opened up later on the game then we could bring on the likes of Forrest, Johnston, Rogic, Griff, to change the game.
The two previous Managers stuck RIGIDLY to 4-2-3-1.
You could count on two hands the games they tried something a bit different.
Neil Lennon does not stick to one setup and never has done in Management.
He’s deployed 3-5-2,4-3–3 and 4-4-2 at Celtic and Hibs previously.
He stated last Season that he would not alter things too much after Rodgers left and this was simply down to the fact they had been playing the same System so long that it might be counter productive altering it given what was at risk and how successful it had been.
The Treble HE secured by doing so backed this up.
So even although tactically it went against his own urges to change formation depending on who we play,where we are playing and more importantly what players are available in order to do so he stuck with the plan already laid out.
This Season he has unfortunately been hampered by injuries especially in Attack where the changes he generated likes to make are affected most.
We’ve effectively down to one Striker for the bulk of this Season.
Griffiths has been out long term and Bayo has either been injured or simply not cutting yet.
He’s adapted the situation by moving the likes of Christie and Forrest around in order to create a 3-5-2 but ideally this would be made simpler by including a fit Griffiths or an effective Bayo.
Injuries to Hayes,Elyounoussi,Johnston and Shved have affected the wide areas and it seems for whatever reason he simply did not fancy Sinclair in his more attack minded thinking.
Kris Commons was a revelation in his 4-3-3 Diamond last time round and both Stokes and Hooper combined very well as a pairing.
You cannot reasonably justify saying he needs to be more flexible when he’s been so restricted in attacking options by comparison to the previous incumbent who did have 3 Strikers fit and STILL stuck with 4-2-3-1 regardless?
It’s a nonsense bud.
4-3-3 Diamond with no wingers both wingbacks on the overlap and two up.
Classic Lennon.
Btw Griffiths was by far the brighter of the two forwards.
AS EXPECTED
Job done next.