Mid Season Report

As that is 22 games played, 11 at home and 11 away it is worth a review to see how some of this season's stats stack up.

Every team has been played both home and away so it should form a balanced review based on opponents played. Although 22 games is more than half way of 38 league games because of the way the league works it is a good point to stop and look over performances against each opponent.

However as much as the stats will be compared to last season it is not a Rodgers v Ange review as a) Ange has gone (he wasn't sacked, he left) so there is no point going over old ground and b) this is Rodgers just building his team so unfair to expect his team to be at their best already and comparable to Ange's second season.

That said using the stats from last season are a handy benchmark.

Comparing the 22 games this season versus the first 22 of last season the xPts is not far apart. This season Celtic have achieved 52.79 xPts which is just over half a point less than last season. However it is notable that it is 7 actual points less.

If you take out the first 11 games last season and look at the next 22 day games (IE up to the split) Celtic achieved 52 xPts so this season is 0.79 better than that. (*Note I've actually taken out matches 1 to 10 plus match 12 as the first time Celtic played Livingston last season was match 12).

Celtic have been leading on average for 44 minutes per game this season which is down on last season's average of 57. Similarly Celtic have been losing more this season by losing on average 5 minutes per game. Interestingly minutes leading by 2 plus goals is up on last season and that is the same when using the second batch of 22 games for last season too. Although Celtic haven't been leading by 3 or more in anywhere near as much games this season.

Celtic have had to deal with 62 minutes of being down to 10 men which wasn't the same last season although they have benefitted from 74 minutes of opponents being down to 10 men which gives a better opportunity than last season.

Looking at goals it is interesting to note that Celtic are performing worse on actual goals scored and better on actual goals against however this is transposed for performance on expected goals for and against.

Celtic have an xG of 58.37 this season (versus 53 actual goals) although there has been 9 penalties versus only 2 last season. However Non Penalty xG is still higher (just) at 51.27. Post Shot xG is at 58.72 for the season so far.

In regards to goals against Celtic have conceded less than last season but xGA is higher and Non Penalty XGA a lot higher.

Looking a bit deeper into the stats Celtic's possession is slightly down this year (although this is an average of the averages rather than a total due to the metrics available). Percentage of the game being played in the final third is up though at 37.8% of the game being played in Celtic's opponents defensive third.

Celtic are averaging 664 passes per match at 85.2% accuracy and 285 of the passes are in the final third. This season Celtic are playing a little bit more long balls with 7.4% of passes being long balls.

I've also looked at players individually and restricted this to the most used 16 players and compared their figures for last season.

Carter-Vickers has only played 52% of the minutes available this season missing the squad altogether 9 times versus playing 86% of the minutes available last season. Hatate played 74% of the minutes for the first 22 games last season and isn't on the list for this season at 20% and that's similar with Abada who is only at 14% this season. Although his total at this stage last season was not as high as Hatate's and was only 48%.

Also missing from last season's most played 16 are Juranovic (44%), Starfelt (48%), Jota (60%), Jenz (43%), Mooy (41%) and Giakoumakis (35%).

McGregor, Taylor and Kyogo have notable played more minutes this season. My instinct was that Rodgers has used subs less this season (basically due to the lack of options) so it surprised me when I seen that Rodgers has used on average 127 minutes of substitutes this season versus 108 last season.

Kyogo still leads the way on Non Penalty xG at 11 which is down from his 12.7 at the same time last season and he has only scored 7 goals compared to 17 at the same time last season. His Non Penalty Post Shot xG is slightly lower at 9.04.

O'Riley is 2nd best for NP xG at 8.7 which is a big lift on last season's 3.66 (which had produced 0 goals) and his Post Shot xG of 10.11 has resulted in 10 actual non penalty goals so far. His assists are down from 8 last season to 6 this season however his xA is not far apart at 6 this season versus 6.51 last season.

It is interesting to note Kyogo has 4 times as much xA at 2 for the season so far so that coming a bit deeper has resulted in more goal creation but it could be argued it has impacted his xG and goals scored.

The above is all based on league games only.

In regards to Europe and the Champions League it is very difficult to compare on a smaller sample and especially when the quality of opponents can vary to a great degree.

Firstly I would separate it by looking at each opponents ELO rating.

Atletico Madrid were ranked 10th and not as highly ranked as Real Madrid who were ranked 3rd although Celtic did get a very credible draw against Atletico this season. Celtic only got 0.24 xPts this season against Atletico at home and had 0.96 xPts for the home game against Real Madrid.

RB Leipzig were 27th in the ELO ratings when Celtic faced and Celtic got 0 points from those 2 games. Lazio (ELO 20th) and Feyenoord (ELO 21st) were on a similar level to RB Leipzig so were good for a comparison.

Beating Feyenoord at home and pushing Lazio to the very close to the end at home (and potentially deserving a win) could be argued as performing better than last season. However it is hard to gauge a win in a dead rubber game even though both teams were definitely trying to win, impressive as it was.

For the home game against RB Leipzig last season Celtic had 1.61 xPts while in this season's games it was 1.68 (v Lazio) and 1.54 (v Feyenoord).

For the away games it was 0.26 and 0.53 last season and 0.03, 0.18 and 0.28 this season.

The other team last season was Shakhtar Donetsk who were not at the same level as this season's opponents as their ELO was 64th. It would have been good to see this season's Celtic against a weaker team (that was around the 64th rank for ELO). xPts in the games against Shakhtar last season were 2.28 (away game) and 1.77 (for the home game).

Celtic Trends

@Tony_McLaughlin