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Writer's pictureTony McLaughlin

Celtic v Livingston (Match Preview)


Probabilities for the match are Celtic 84%, Livingston 4% and 12% for the draw.


Livingston play with a 4-2-3-1 system and in their last league game (on 12th November at home to Hearts) they lined up with the following;

  • 31 Ivan Konovalov

  • 2 Nicky Devlin, 6 Ayo Obileye, 5 Jack Fitzwater and 11 Christian Montano

  • 24 Sean Kelly and 18 Jason Holt

  • 33 Stephane Omeonga, 22 Andrew Shinnie and 17 Stephen Kelly

  • 19 Joel Nouble

Although against Celtic in the recent game in October Livingston played with a back 5 with Sean Kelly dropping back to left centre back.


Livingston at home is one of only two fixtures that Ange hasn’t one yet with the other being St Mirren away.


Livingston are 6th in the league but are 9th in the xPts league meaning they have had some fortune in their results. They have 7th most xG and have conceded the 5th most xG.


In their last 6 fixtures they have only lost once (to Celtic) and this included a trip to Ibrox where they drew 1-1 after conceding an injury time equaliser.


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 Ross County (according to the xPts) with the xG being 1.78 to 0.49 in Livingston’s favour. 0.74 of Livingston xG coming from set plays.


Sean Kelly has the most xG for Livingston at 3.6 for the season (13th in the Premiership) and Joel Nouble is on 2.6 (22nd). Bruce Anderson has the most xG per 90 at 0.3 (19th).


Christian Montano has 0.13 xA per 90 so far for the season and that is the best of any Livingston player. That is 46th in the Premiership.


Montano has the most interceptions per 90 in the Premiership at 2.7.


Anderson has the most possession won per 90 in the final third at 2.1.

Shamal George is the 3rd best keeper in the league for goals prevented with 0.4 less goals conceded than expected.


In the game in October Livingston’s player who had the most passes was left centre back 24 Sean Kelly with 22 successful passes out of 27 and the Livingston player with the most passes received was 3 Jackson Longridge with 18. Those two players were involved in the most frequent pass combinations with Sean Kelly to Longridge happening 9 times.


In that game only 21% of Celtic’s xG came in the first half and that seemed to be because Celtic looked to be playing patiently throughout the game confident in their tactics and confident that the result would come.


However interestingly Livingston’s PPDA improved from 18 in the first half to 10.2 in the second half.


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