Probabilities for the match are Celtic 67%, Aberdeen 13% and 20% for the draw.
Aberdeen are 3rd in the league on 25pts and they are also 3rd in the league for expected points (xPts) on 1.483 per game.
Below is their xPts trend for the season so far with the chart coloured coded to reflect the result of the game. IE Red was a defeat, amber a draw and green a win.
They were unlucky against Livingston (according to the xPts) with the xG being 3.19 to 1.29 in Aberdeen’s favour. However this did includes 2 penalties for Aberdeen (and 1 for Livingston). For NP xG it was closer at 1.61 to 0.50 in Aberdeen’s favour.
On Celtic’s unbeaten run from September last season the lowest 2 lowest games for xPts for Celtic were Rangers at home in May (1 xPt) and Aberdeen away in February where the xG was 1.36 v 0.45 in Celtic’s favour.
Aberdeen played with 3 at the back on their last game before the break (versus Dundee Utd) and they played the following team in a 3-5-2 formation;
24 Kelle Roos
2 Ross McCrorie, 5 Anthony Stewart and 4 Liam Scales
33 Matthew Kennedy, 8 Connor Barron, 16 Ylber Ramadani, 20 Leighton Clarkson and 22 Hayden Coulson
11 Duk and 9 Bojan Miovski
With MacKenzie, Watkins, Besuijen and Duncan coming on as subs and Lewis, Richardson, Milne, Morris and Ramirez all unused subs.
Liam Scales is ineligible for the Celtic game.
Aberdeen’s Miovski is joint top scorer in the league on 11 goals with 5 of them being penalties. His xG per 90 of 0.72 is 4th best in the league however even if you measure in NP xG he is still 4th at 0.43 per 90. He leads the SPFL with the most big chances missed on 12.
Matthew Kennedy has the most xA per 90 at 0.2 and he’s 6th in the SPFL for successful dribbles per 90 at 1.8 however at 61.5% success rate that is the best success rate out of any player in the top 20.
Anthony Stewart has the 2nd most clearances per 90 at 7.8.
Roos is 4th in the SPFL for goals prevented and he has made a big difference with last year’s goalkeeper Joe Lewis being 2nd bottom.
It is interesting to note that the league’s 2nd best chance creator (Jota who is 0.48 per 90) didn’t create much at Pittodrie on the 2 games last season with only 0.04 and 0.03. However he did have 0.96 and 0.67 xG in those games. Best for xA in those games was Montgomery 0.62 and Abada 0.52.
My prediction is at 12/1 for Kyogo so score in the fist 10 minutes.
Celtic Trends 🍀📈⚽️
Tony@CelticTrends.com
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