By James Dailey
Today’s installment continues my “campaign” against 10 in a row complacency. Much has been made of this past season’s winter break, “what happened in Dubai” for Celtic and The Rangers, and the subsequent 13-point lead. Various narratives about winning mentality by Celtic have emerged, so I decided to analyze things from an advanced stats perspective. Following my review, I believe that narrative may be overblown. In honor of my friend Andrew on Twitter, I have distilled this down to an executive summary:
- Celtic’s wage advantage of around £9 million empowered a deeper squad better able to endure injuries. The Rangers had enjoyed relative health pre-break and that good fortune ended, which left their relative lack of squad depth exposed (Ed – they had the largest squad in Scotland so it was a lack of quality not quantity?).
- Morelos experienced a collapse in output despite a comparatively modest drop-off in advanced stats, all while having widely reported issues in his personal life.
- Lennon’s shift to a 3-5-2 addressed various structural issues which dramatically increased the offensive production of both McGregor and Edouard (and the team overall), while re-introducing Griffiths and increasing the balance of our attack across the pitch. The result was a consistent offensive explosion and Celtic dominating domestic opponents to a level where the risks of dropping points plummeted.
I will be breaking this analysis down into two separate pieces. This first one will review overall performance stats pre- and post-break along with squad depth, while in the second I will review the performance disparity between Edouard/Morelos and the shift to the 3-5-2 formation.
Pre vs Post
The following data breaks out each teams’ performance and output (including Europe) per 90 minutes excluding penalties for the pre- and post-winter break periods:
Celtic’s underlying xG and xG differential went from good to very good, while goal output remained above what xG would suggest – i.e. Celtic consistently outperformed their xG.
On the other hand, Rangers went from outperforming their xG during the pre-break period at a level comparable to Celtic to dramatically underperforming it.
Celtic most definitely took performance levels post-break up a notch, while Rangers remained at a comparable level. It was their goal output which collapsed compared to the scoring chances created.
Rangers’ last two league results prior to the shutdown are excellent examples: the 1-0 loss to Hamilton at Ibrox and 1-0 victory in Dingwall vs Ross County. They accumulated xG of 5.66 and surrendered just 1.05 combined in those two games. Incredibly, they outperformed Hamilton by xG of 3.45 to 0.61 on 31 total shots. To place that game into perspective, the xG gaps and number of shots were greater than those in Celtic’s 5-0 victory over St. Mirren in the last league game of the season. Rangers lost two other fixtures which were basically draws from an xG perspective, which means that they could have easily accumulated an additional 5 to 9 points post-break.
Variance between underlying performance stats like xG in single or a small number of games can be significant. Celtic were truly dominate in the league this season, but a relatively normal variance in luck could have swung the league table to be much closer.
Pre-break there were 5 Celtic victories in which xG was close enough (less than 1 goal) where normal variance could have resulted in dropped points, including 1 each against the likes of Hamilton and Hearts. By comparison, The Rangers had only 3 victories pre-break which were that close. It would have taken just a few of those games, and/or the three post-break for Rangers, to “break” against Celtic for the league to have been uncomfortably close.
Squad Depth
The pre-break period for The Rangers was exceptionally fortunate when it came to injuries. Outside of the cheap shot-induced injury to Jordan Jones, no player of real standing missed meaningful time due to injury until Helander was injured in the December Cup Final.
In addition, Morelos’ disciplinary record pre-break was relatively clean. In contrast, the post-break period of 10 league games included missed time by the following players due to injury: Tavernier, Jack, Arfield, Defoe, Barisic, and Helander, while Morelos missed several games as his disciplinary issue re-emerged.
Would Rangers have dropped more points pre-break had the timing of injuries been spread out more within the season? That is certainly a plausible scenario.
However, the condensed timing of the injuries into the post-break period was likely even more impactful due to their relative lack of depth. Celtic certainly experienced a fair share of injuries throughout the season, but they were more dispersed and the wage disparity of about £9 million is the equivalent of 4 to 6 additional high-quality players and depth. For example, Celtic had the depth to have Christie, Bolingoli, and Bitton on the bench, while The Rangers had players like Barker, Halliday, and Edmundson.
Conclusion
I believe an objective review of this past season’s performance data suggest that the ultimate 13-point margin was not an accurate indication of how close the league was. The post-break explosion in the points gap was largely driven by a combination of a rash of injuries to a weaker Rangers squad combined with a collective swing in goal production of about 1.60 goals per game in Celtic’s favor.
Approximately 0.40 of that was due to improved Celtic performance levels, while about 1.20 was due to a collapse in Morelos’ ability to convert chances – both of which I will analyze in my next piece.
The no 1 danger to 10 is Rangers willingness to finance a league push at all cost. Their business model is bust once again but backers are willing to push more money in…this is more money to be written off to financial losses.
Effectively, this means that Rangers do not need to deal with business realities of surviving Covid19 as their business model is a fantasy. Perversely, this makes the bug more problematic to the real and successful business model of Celtic.
Rationally, Celtic shouldn’t try to over compete with Rangers short term if they are overspending through short term financing that knows it will be written off to losses. Celtic survive and have another 10 years of success and Rangers go through more upheaval as at some point backers get fed up and/or want to see the club breakeven.
Without Covid19 no doubt Celtic were going to spend a decent bit of cash to ensure 10IAR….but how much does the impact of the bug hit that? And does the huge advantage over Rangers have short term damage due to perverse impacts of bug-onomics?
Its much harder than it sounds as if Celtic now spend more than they should and for whatever reason find that can’t recoup that in player trading we significantly weaken ourselves for subsequent years and give a newly backed Rangers a much easier shot at matching up to us.
What’s the solution?
Hello mojo – thanks for reading and commenting.
I agree with a lot of your comment and think many in our support underestimate the risks Celtic face heading into this season. You reference some important ones, and my prior piece examining Gerrard’s record as a manager examines another. My season review is uncovering some pretty glaring issues with Lennon’s management which I will likely share in a future piece, and I think they could add to the risks if not addressed.
I am approaching my season ending analysis like I hope the staff at Celtic are – obsessively looking for risks that could jeopardize 10iar. If they go crazy financially while we remain stagnant or take a slight step back, the league probably becomes a coin flip where things like injuries and other random luck enter the picture. Even if everything were static from last season to the upcoming, they would be about a 1 in 3 risk for the league. I think it would be wise not to forget that old Rangers had a far stronger team on paper heading into 97-98.
Now there’s a good topic – comparing 97/98 with now re relative squad strength
I would be extremely dubious about making comparisons with 23 years ago. If a week is a long time in politics…however…
“Rangers had a far stronger team on paper” and football’s not played on paper, as the adage has it.
If I recall we recruited exceptionally well but low key and low cost (Jansen, Larsson, Rieper, Gould etc) whereas they went for poor high profile/ cost (Amoruso etc) who hardly played.
Also the pragmatism (ie boring at times) introduced by Jansen and his signings exposed the flat-track bully inadequacies of previous “world class” Gascoigne, Laudrup etc.
Its probably impossible to forecast what football is going to be like both during and after the pandemic, so all takes can easily be rendered useless pretty quickly.
With that in mind, I’d expect us to be solid and unspectacular and, if we retain key players eg Eddy, Ajer and Forster, not a lot of non-project 1st team player recruitees.
Similarly, I’d expect them to go for the showy eg Hagi, forwards etc and not, perhaps needed, solid defensive and midfield players, as this seems to be the only way they have of “exciting” their fans. A pitch of “listen, we’re building slowly and steadily for a title challenge in 2/3 years” might be more prudent but Dear Prudence has never been in fashion down there.
I also don’t see where they’ll get any money for major splurges, as they’re already in major hock due to previous seasons failed “investments” and will they even have season ticket money to play with this season?
Complacency will be a factor but so will inventing a major challenge that doesn’t exist.
I agree with a lot of what was said But my arguement is The Rangers at this time is a financial time bomb And this was even before Covid 19 We all know The Rangers are using the Close Brothers as their financial backers As they needed £ 1000000 pound to see them through this season How long do you see this continuing?When you see your money being burnt on a bonfire No silverware A manager who is a losing liability Your best asset financially liability falling every time He gets booked or sent off All Celtic have to do is Tie up Forster and his Southampton team mate Sign Turnbell Hinkey And McKenna And bloody well make sure We keep Eddy
Sorry, Hickey and Mc Kenna are not good enough. Turnbull is good enough but in rehab following a minor procedure brought forward.
I can see the historical significance of 10 and being in the position to achieve it is great but I would not like to go meekly in that dark night of early European exits. We should get ten. We have the best players, the best squad, the best management team and the best ( most) fans. We also have a £9 million advantage in paying those players over our nearest challengers. I think the next signing, a quality replacement for Damian Duff ( and soon), is crucial.