Pass Marks

Passing accounts for over 75% of all on field actions with the ball. Rodger’s places great emphasis on possession and passing football. Passing data provides an insight into player style and performance. Does the squad achieve pass marks?

Most Passes Total – Top 5

The Top 5 does not correlate directly with time on the pitch, but a combination of game time and position. The more central and deeper you play the more likely you are to complete a pass as an outfield player. Hence the central defenders and deeper lying midfielders generally dominate possession. Here’s the top 5 by volume of completed passes.

Brown has played the most matches and tends to dictate the tempo from deep in midfield. So, no surprise he is first, but he is almost 1000 passes ahead of second place!

Tierney and Lustig’ s numbers are influenced by both their extensive match time but also as full backs they take nearly all the throw ins, counted as Set Piece Passes.

Boyata has had the highest game time of the centre backs and makes the top 5 even though he is 7^th in the list for appearance data.

McGregor is the only attacking midfielder in the list. He didn’t play as many minutes as Forrest and doesn’t take free kicks or corners often. His numbers are boosted by four appearances at left back where he is something of a ball magnet. From left back, McGregor averages 95 completed passes per 90m!

Most Passes Per 90m – Top 5

Removing the vagaries of minutes played tells us the players who average the most passes over 90m.

By this measure, we also have an emphatic leader, but it is not Brown. Playing Bitton at centre back allows him more time and space on the ball for his excellent range of passing. From this position he averages 16 more passes per 90m than any other player.

Other centre backs dominate this list, reflecting Celtic’s patient style. The ball is often recycled across a back two or three whilst the full backs, especially Tierney, push on. This can be tortuous if done slowly but is useful drawing teams out especially when leading.

Brown is the exception as the only midfielder. However, he often drops back into the defensive line when Celtic have deep possession to allow high width and to provide space for the other central midfielders to find.

Pass Accuracy – Top 8

Pass completion does not tell you a lot about pass effectiveness, but we’ll get to that later in the week. In general, you want the defensive players, especially those playing centrally, to have high pass completion. Unless you play like Motherwell and hit many long, straight passes from central positions towards two tall strikers. But for Celtic, we can expect the pass completion stats to be dominated by central defenders.

I’ve included 8 players to capture all those with 90% pass completion or above.

There isn’t really a lot between the central defenders and the defensive midfielders Brown and Kouassi. McGregor is the most interesting aspect of this data considering his generally attacking role. Forrest is at 86% which is also surprisingly high for an attacking wide player.

Pass Accuracy – Bottom 6

The list of those with the lowest pass completion is mainly made up of the goalkeepers and strikers. Goalkeepers don’t have much possession and are often forced to pass long with a concomitant (yes, I did it!) reduction in accuracy. Strikers play often with their back to goal, under heavy pressure, and their passes are attempts into the most congested areas.

Griffiths being the lowest is probably a function of two factors. Firstly, his innate risk-taking style. He will attempt ambitious passes – the Stokes Syndrome. Secondly, he takes many of the free kicks and corners which have a lower probability of success.

Dembele is the strongest passer of the three strikers reflecting his strength and ability to hold the ball up thus compete the next action (the pass) under more control.

Hayes is the only midfielder in the “bottom” 5. He attempts a lot of imprecise “passes” into the box, in contrast to Tierney who tends to try and pick players out in the box. Hayes has what is known as Izaguirre Syndrome – i.e. just bang it in the box and hope for the best! He attempted 3.21 cross per 90m but was only successful with 1 of them.

Passes Incomplete Total – Top 5

Because this table is fun, I’ll include the players who have given away the ball the most times.

Tierney has given away 604 passes which is 216 times more than any other player! 15 players in the squad haven’t given away 216 passes in total! Whilst praising Tierney for the accuracy of his “crossing”, he does give the ball away often. I have commented previously on his throw ins and how delayed they are forcing him to go long and therefore a higher risk of losing the ball. His defending style is also “no nonsense”, in that if there is danger he will action a hurried pass rather than risk losing possession. Finally, he is a mainly an attacking outlet for Celtic. Therefore, many of his passes are in the final third against compact defences and are more difficult to complete. Tierney has a unique role at Celtic being officially a defender but spending so much time attacking. That, and the fact he has played so many minutes, explains why this stat is such an outlier.

Passes Incomplete Per 90m – Top 5

Remarkably, given the sheer volume of passes Tierney gives away compared to any other Hoop, he is not the per 90m leader!

He barely makes the top 5. Griffiths has the highest overall pass incomplete rate per 90m. A third of his failed passes are set pieces, mainly corners, which explains a lot.

Hayes has the highest open play pass fail rate at 12.55 per 90m. It is interesting that the higher risk passers like Griffiths, Hayes, Armstrong, have been missing from the team due to injury. Their replacements such as Forrest, Sinclair, McGregor are all much more conservative passers. This meets Rodgers’ ball retention objective but reduced risk taking can mean less chances being created.

Finally, the table shows De Vries at 3^rd in the passes per 90m given away. Conversely this is probably one of the reasons Rodgers likes him. He attempts difficulty passes from the back. When they come off they can be highly effective. 22% of De Vries’s passes take out at least one opponent. This is 10% higher than the other ‘’keepers.

Even basic passing stats tell as something about player performance and their role in the team. Next time I will analyse those that break the opposition lines. Those that can get the ball beyond defenders and midfielders into dangerous areas.