Article by James Dailey As I consume mainstream and fan-based Celtic-related media, I am constantly bombarded by “conventional wisdom” and provided with topics to analyze. Today’s subject is the often-repeated notion that Neil Lennon is a better and more pragmatic tactical manager than Brendan Rodgers- particularly in Europe. I believe much of this notion is … [continue reading]
xG
The Edouard Dependency
Plotting Expected Goals and Expected Assists for midfielders and forwards gives us a view on not just goal threat but creativity too. The chart below is xG and xA per 90m in all competitions for Celtic. Only includes players with > 450 minutes. For me, the main take-aways are: Reinforces how vital Edouard is. With … [continue reading]
Christie Leads The Scoring, But For How Long?
With 41 goals in 13 matches, Celtic have started the second Lennon era in spectacular fashion. As I covered in The (Partial) Death of Possession Football, Lennonball involves more shots, a bit of regression back towards the xG mean, slight increase in chance creation and a whole lotta conversion rate joy! Let’s look at the … [continue reading]
Someone Due A Doing?
To assess whether players have improved year on year, I compare their Expected Scoring Contributions (xSC) (Expected Goals (xG) and Expected Assists (xA)) over the last two seasons. xSC Expected Scoring Contribution (xSC) is the aggregation of xG and xA. Here is the change in the is combined metric over the last two seasons for … [continue reading]
The Sharp End
Scoring Contribution gets to the heart of footballing productivity. It combines goals and assists, or in this case Expected Goals and Assists – the speed boat you could have won! xNPG is Expected Non-Penalty Goals. Why? Because the chances of scoring a penalty are the same irrespective of the taker. It is a separate measurable … [continue reading]
Attacking Leaders for the Cup Final
Approaching the Scottish Cup Final, a refresh of the leaders in the Expected Goals and Assists map. Whatever you might think of Burke and Weah, there is no denying they provided attacking threat. Weah has the highest Expected Goals (xG) in the squad. Burke is a good all-rounder with a higher overall threat than Sinclair, … [continue reading]
Expected Goals and Assists – November 2018
Yesterday I provided the Goals and Assists totals per player. Today I look at Expected Goals and Expected Assists. These measure the quality of the chances provided and created in terms of the probability of a goal being scored. 27 games into the season, we have a good sample of data to compare. All values are … [continue reading]
Delivery Failure
There can be no denying Celtic’s current form is poor compared to previous trophy-laden seasons. I will look at a range of key performance indicators to see where it might be going wrong. I have plotted each metric per game back to the start of last season (2017/18). I did not include the 2016/17 season … [continue reading]
Dembele Shaped Hole
Looking at attacking performance indicators so far this season. The graph below plots Expected Goals (quality of shot chances) and Expected Assists (quality of chances created). Together this is Expected Scoring Contribution but compared we can see the squad attacking potential productivity. All values are per 90m. I have included all players who have played … [continue reading]
Can Celtic Over Perform Again?
The always excellent @TheGersReport wrote on the equally innovative Modern Fitba site (a great addition to the Scottish football online landscape) about which team can expect to see an increase or decrease in scoring this season. The article is here. The basic principle is that over time a players’ goals and assists totals should revert … [continue reading]