An article for the undervalued. But mainly Ntcham.
Assists, chances and expected goals have all seeped into the mainstream on occasions and regular visitors to this site will be very familiar with those terms. Here we look further back in the moves to see who is creating the environment from which chances can follow.
Secondary assists may sound like a stat too far (!) but gives value to the player who passes to the player who sets up the chance (the assister).
Passing Impect is the total score assigned to all the players bypassed by passing (3 points for taking out a defender, 2 a midfielder and 1 a forward). More information here Concerning Packing.
Brining the two together highlights the players most adept at providing the time and space for a chance creating pass. It provides a deeper insight into what we broadly call “creativity”.
This is the area of the game where Ntcham excels. He attempts 78 passes per game which is more than all but the centre backs and Brown. Indicative therefore, of playing deeper. Since Armstrong left no one else comes close to Ntcham for bypassing the opponents with passes. His average Passing Impect score is 13 more than the next highest. And although not leading on Secondary Assists, he has the 3rd highest with 1.64.
This view allows us to see what are often some of the undervalued players perhaps in a more holistic light. The 2nd highest Impect score is from Lustig. Not only is he aerially strong and an experienced defender (if perhaps slowing), his long passing from the back provides an alternative option for Celtic attacks. And he gets success with this approach.
Another player who receives criticism regularly is Sinclair but he leads the squad in Secondary Assists with 1.84 per 90m. He is operating further forward that Ntcham and his passing options are usually highly pressurised.
Note also that although Morgan may appear to be having a slow start to his Celtic career, he has quickly established himself as a creative talent with 1.84 Secondary Assists per 90m. As an aside, Morgan has also taken over from Ntcham as the player with the most shots from outside the box per 90m (2.55). Not necessarily one to be proud of but indicative of someone prepared to take chances.
A further point of interest from this chart is that whilst players are grouped by position. Within the striker cadre at the bottom Edouard is shown as the most creative highlighting again the need for a penalty box operator to replace Dembele.
Overall I hope this provides evidence of some of the less obvious work undertaken by key squad members.
Mate, stop counting assists. They are meaningless.
Yes far more aesthetic is the pass for its own sake – a beautiful moment in on of itself. I’ll not mention assists and your good self in the same sentence again Mr Ntcham.
Great stuff – however, sometimes I feel that this type of reductive approach doesn’t fully consider the context. I seem to be almost unique among Celtic fans in that I remain unconvinced by Ntcham. Don’t get me wrong, clearly a decent player in there somewhere, but: 1) I feel like he has too many poor games, I’d say for every good performance he has one stinker, and he has put in an absolutely wretched performance in several European games. 2) The team as a whole lost a lot of dynamism in replacing Armstrong with Ntcham that isn’t reflected by these numbers – Ntcham and Brown too often take up similarly deep positions, and we grind to a standstill passing sideways 3) His shooting is dreadful, both in terms of shot selection and execution. 4) His set piece delivery is woeful. I’m sure you did a piece recently on how poor we were from corners – I would be interested to know how many of Ntcham’s corners and set pieces lead to anything, compared with others.
I guess what I’m getting at is that these numbers don’t really reflect the opportunity cost of a lot of Ntcham’s involvement – particularly his poor set plays and his tendency to shoot when we would be better served retaining possession. I’ve also felt from day 1 that there is a patience and generosity afforded to a French U21 international that guys like Christie and McGregor have never enjoyed. Not a criticism of your article or approach, which is thorough and incisive as ever, more a meditation on a (slightly) overrated player and a weakness of the econometric approach! Interested to hear your thoughts? 🙂
Thanks for the many interesting comments.
Respectfully I would disagree and we have to remember he is a very young player playing in a very demanding role. Also, whilst I accept the risk of reducing the picture by illustrating two particular stats, remember those stats are themselves composites of many things especially the Packing data where seeing the pass, executing, receiving, controlling and then performing the next action all have to be achieved for it to “count”.
I think Brown and Bitton as under Deila was definitely an issue but a variety of stats show Ntcham is far more progressive as a player. WHat will be interesting is how Rodgers fits in Brown, Ntcham, McGregor and Christie.
Thanks for responding. I would have to counter some of your response though – another of my long-held views is that we as a nation infantilize players – Ntcham will be 23 in Feb and he’s physically as developed as he’ll ever be. I literally NEVER hear Raheem Sterling (23) or Delli Alli (22) referred to as ‘very young’ by the English media, yet I recently heard Calmac (25) and Forrest (27) repeatedly described as young after the Scotland games!
I do concede though that Ntcham definitely has his strengths, he seems to pass particularly well insde the opposing full backs, and his upper body strength when he’s on the ball is oustanding. As I say, if you haven’t already done so, I’d be intrigued to see his scores on some indicator of shot selection though – perhaps the average xG of his shots from outside the box (full disclosure, I still can’t get my head around exactly how xG is calculated!). Also average xG from his set pieces vs others?
I would agree with Martin about Ntcham in European games as I have noticed that his passing is poor especially the first 20-30mins of the first half, after that he tends to get it right. His set corners and free kicks are woeful! I would also agree that he is given much more game time to prove himself than the likes of Christie eg. Ntcham does see the pass and your figures show him to be much more forward thinking than Brown or Bitton. Ntcham is also good at holding the ball and physically very strong which bodes well in games. Yes indeed how will BR fit Brown, Olly, CalMac , Rogic and Christie together? I would shoehorn Christie into the “wide left” position with Brown and Calmac the holding two and Rogic the center “no. 10”. Forest wide right and Eddy or Griffs up front. So I guess I “underrate” him, although I believe he will improve.