Paradise Lost to Tiny Margins

Semi-final defeats can be considered most cruel. At least defeat in a final is presaged with built up and excitement for the end of season finale.

And let’s be honest, letting your main rival have a shot at a Cup is bound to sting.

Notwithstanding the discomfort then, I always try and come back to the actual performance over the outcome.

Ach, that’s no good either!

But we press on….

Possession and Passing

For the third Derby running, Celtic had the minority of possession. This, in itself, is not necessarily a worry. However, I’d like to see a greater degree of game control.

The key stat I want to draw your attention to is 79% pass completion. This is Celtic’s lowest of the season. In short, the passing just wasn’t consistently good enough, especially in the final third. Only against Midtjylland (193) did Celtic give up possession more than here – 173 times. Both matches went to extra time.

Celtic managed to play through the Ibrox club reasonably easily – 22% of all passes took out one opponent.

It is what happened next that was an issue.

Goal Threat

I had the xG in The Rangers favour, and Wyscout had it 2.11 – 1.63 in Celtic’s favour. My model overstated the Sakala overhead kick in the 6-yard box – that should have been a free kick to Celtic for the contact with Carter-Vickers’ head.

Both sides only had 2 shots on target and similar numbers blocked or off.

Celtic managed 14 shots in the box which is one of the higher totals of the season. However, few of them were clear cut and an average xG per shot of 0.1 is relatively poor. The Rangers average was 0.14.

The key metric of note is that only 10% of Celtic’s shots were on target. This is the worst from any game this season.

Attacking Momentum

Here are the Packing Passes and xG plotted across the 120 minutes.

Basically – incredibly close.

The Sofascore Attack Momentum saw Celtic with greater attacking momentum overall but again this was too close to call.

Attacking / Creative

There was only really 1 Big Chance in the whole 120 minutes. Carter-Vickers hit the bar with a clear sight of goal from 8 yards following a corner, with Celtic already 1-0 up.

Both teams were able to pass through the opponent easily and so the Packing scores were high. The Rangers went man for man rather than defending space as well as deploying a high press. Meanwhile Celtic continued to press high while they could.

These were high risk strategies given the large Hampden pitch. Neither side fashioned much in the way of good quality shots however despite copious possession in the opposition boxes.

Credit to the respective defences.

Defending

Celtic actually won more duels as they were forced into more defensive actions.

Yet each goalkeeper had one save to make each.

There were few errors in the game, in defence at least. Poor decision-making errors were mainly the preserve of the forward players.

A huge number of recoveries each speaks to the pressure exerted and the number of long balls each team were forced into.

Celtic completed 19 of 48 long passes and The Rangers 44 of 72. On average, a Blue ball into the final third was 4 metres longer than Celtics.

Crime Count

The basic foul stats do not begin to tell the story of the performance of Madden.

The Yorkshire Whistler is watching back the whole match and will be compiling an assessment. I will share that with you when I have it.

Celtic got a break with Taylor’s deflected shot to take the lead.

However, in extra-time, two pieces of misfortune befell the Hoops.

On 96 minutes Barisic handled a cross from Forrest. Had VAR been deployed, the free kick would have been changed to a penalty as the offence occurred on the edge of the goal line. This would have been nigh on impossible to spot in real time on the field.

On 114 minutes, Bassey took a pass from Kent and his cross was turned in by Starfelt. Again, had the English version of VAR protocols been available, Bassey would have been given fractionally offside. Again, it is understandable the linesman did not spot this.

Summary

This match saw The Rangers post similar attacking stats as had been achieved by Real Betis and Bayer 04 Leverkusen. If that sounds like I am claiming they are a high-quality European side, bear in mind the aforementioned Spanish and German clubs achieved that volume in 90 minutes not 120 minutes.

What is fair is to state that The Rangers implemented a European style counter-attacking plan, and as they won, will say that was successful.

Celtic tried to play like they always do under Postecoglou, and their attacking fluency was badly lacking.

Whilst the defensive core of Hart, Carter-Vickers, Starfelt and McGregor were all highly steady to excellent, the attacking talent did not blossom.

McGregor created 3 chances, no one else managed more than 2. Jota had 7 shots, none were on target and he averaged 0.06 xG per shot. He lost the ball 11 times in the final 3^rd without creating any positive outcome. O’Riley was next on 5. Jotas decision making was consistently poor, but he still racked up volume as always.

On the other wing Abada created 0 chances and had an xG of 0.07. Maeda only had one shot.

Meanwhile the creative midfielders struggled to break the man-to-man aggressive press. Some of that is down to Madden’s unique interpretation of the laws, and some down to poor passing and not putting enough risk into passing on occasions.

All that being said, the defence gave up very little and if it hadn’t been for two missed calls in extra time, it would have likely been a different outcome.

Bear in mind one key stat before I leave you. The average age of the players who got onto the pitch is 25.1 years-old. Hatate is 23 but is inexperienced given his university career. For them it was 28.5. Nearly 3.5 years a player more experience. This can be a good thing in managing a big game such as this.

Medium to long term, Celtic remain a team on the upswing whilst they have a relatively aging squad needing significant refreshment.

Which brings me to….

The league remains mission critical and potentially landscape changing in terms of Scottish football.

Eyes on.