Celtic 3
xG 1.51
(Taylor 29, Maeda 33 and Kyogo 45+2)
Livingston 0
xG 0.34
Celtic's xG of 1.51 is the lowest at home this season and the 3rd lowest in Ange's reign with only St Mirren at home last season and Rangers 1-1 at home last season lower.
Unusually for Celtic most of their attacks were down the right hand side on the weekend versus Dundee Utd (38%) but natural order was resumed in this game with Celtic having 45% of their attacks down the left (30% down the right).
Also on Sunday Greg Taylor unusually had the least amount of passes out of the back 4 and also had only 84% passing accuracy. Natural order was resumed against Livingston with Taylor having the most passes made (129) which was 18% of the team's total and that is the highest of any full back in any game under Ange's reign. The season average for left back is 11% of the team's total. The player Taylor passed the most to was Maeda with Taylor passing 31 times to him.
Taylor was also highest for passes received at 109 with 38 of them coming from Starfelt. His passing accuracy improved to 87%, he had 0.12 xA and scored a wonderful goal from a 0.11 xG chance. Post Shot xG from his shot was 0.51. Taylor back to his best makes a difference to the Celtic performance.
Taylor's heatmap and touches map below showing how inverted he was playing.
There were comments that this was a game of two halves given the goals scored in the first half v second half however some other underlying stats would suggest differently.
Celtic actually improved their first half xG by 65% in the second half and comparing the xGD in the first half versus the second half the second half looks to be the half with the better performance. However game state has always to be taken into consideration.
The xGD in the first half was +0.25 and it was +0.92 in the second half with Celtic both increasing their xG in the second half and reducing the xGA as well.
Top contributors for xG were Kyogo (0.54) and Maeda (0.45) and top contributors for xA were Maeda (0.79), Jota (0.59) and Hatate (0.20).
Celtic lined up with;
Hart
Johnston, Carter-Vickers, Starfelt and Taylor
O'Riley, McGregor and Hatate
Jota, Kyogo and Maeda
2 changes from the weekend with O'Riley and Maeda coming back in for Mooy for Abada.
O'Riley's average position is interesting in that it is more central than to the right that you would expect.
The squad was still the same as the weekend with Bernabei, Lawal, Welsh and Ralston still missing. Ralston is likely to be due to injury however he may not even have made the bench if fit. Mooy, Abada, Turnbull, Oh and Iwata all came on as subs for O'Riley, Jota, Hatate, Kyogo and McGregor.
Celtic Trends 🍀📈⚽️
Tony@CelticTrends.com
Comments