Rangers 3 xG 1.57 (Cantwell 5, Souttar 34 and Sakala 70) Celtic 0 xG 1.34 Celtic had the better of the chances in the first quarter of the match however came out of that period 1-0 down.
Rangers had 7 shots with a total xG of 0.55 for this period of the game while Celtic had an xG of 0.93 from 3 shots. Rangers had 3 shots on target from those 7 shots and a Post Shot xG of 0.62 while Celtic's had 0 shots on target and therefore a Post Shot xG of 0.00.
Celtic also had 64% possession during this first quarter of the game.
However overall Rangers had 1.57 xG versus Celtic's 1.34 but more importantly Post Shot xG was 1.86 for Rangers and 0.07 for Celtic.
Looking at PPDA for the first 15 minutes Rangers had the lowest at 7.1 versus Celtic's 10.3. Meaning Rangers had a defensive action for every 7.1 Celtic passes.
In Ange's time this is only the second time Rangers have had a lower PPDA than Celtic in the first 15 minutes. The only other time being the Cup Semi Final last year (where Rangers won in extra time) in which the PPDA was 6.5 for Rangers and 10.8 for Celtic in the first 15 minutes.
PPDA in first 15 minutes for all the Derby games in Ange's time below;
August 2021 Ibrox - Celtic 7.17 Rangers 18
February 2022 Celtic Park - Celtic 4.71 Rangers 9
April 2022 Ibrox - Celtic 6.8 Rangers 10.5
April 2022 Hampden - Celtic 10.8 Rangers 6.5
May 2022 Celtic Park - Celtic 7 Rangers 19.75
September 2022 Celtic Park - Celtic 4.3 Rangers 25
January 2023 Ibrox - Celtic 6.6 Rangers 8.2
February 2023 Hampden - Celtic 4 Rangers 10.8
April 2023 Celtic Park - Celtic 4.5 Rangers 8.2
April 2023 Hampden - Celtic 11.5 Rangers 21
May 2023 Ibrox - Celtic 10.3 Rangers 7.1
Another interesting stat from the game was % of passing from Celtic's midfielders as a % of the team's overall total.
Looking at the trends from all Derby games below;
August 2021 Ibrox - Celtic's midfield had 26% of the team's overall total passes
February 2022 Celtic Park - Celtic's midfield had 29% of the team's overall total passes
April 2022 Ibrox - Celtic's midfield had 35% of the team's overall total passes
April 2022 Hampden - Celtic's midfield had 29% of the team's overall total passes
May 2022 Celtic Park - Celtic's midfield had 27% of the team's overall total passes
September 2022 Celtic Park - Celtic's midfield had 31% of the team's overall total passes
January 2023 Ibrox - Celtic's midfield had 31% of the team's overall total passes
February 2023 Hampden - Celtic's midfield had 33% of the team's overall total passes
April 2023 Celtic Park - Celtic's midfield had 27% of the team's overall total passes
April 2023 Hampden - Celtic's midfield had 29% of the team's overall total passes
May 2023 Ibrox - Celtic's midfield had 24% of the team's overall total passes
So in yesterday's game Celtic's midfield had only 24% of the team's overall total passes and that was the lowest in a Derby in Ange's time and it was well below the 35% the team had last year at Ibrox.
A major influence on the result though has to be the no fans. That's not an excuse but just a reality of the situation. I mentioned in my preview https://www.celtictrends.com/post/rangers-v-celtic-match-preview-2 that Celtic's win record (after 90 minutes) against Rangers is 56% while that rises to 74% if you only include matches where Celtic have had more than 700 fans present. However that drops to 18% if you only include the matches where Celtic have had 700 fans or less.
Celtic lined up with;
Hart
Ralston, Starfelt, Kobayashi and Bernabei
O'Riley, McGregor and Hatate
Abada, Oh and Jota
Three changes to the line up from last weekend the Glasgow Derby with Bernabei, Abada and Oh coming in for Taylor, Maeda and Kyogo who all dropped to the bench.
Mooy (injured) and Lawal dropped out of the match day squad and they were replaced by Summers and Forrest. Forrest making his first appearance in the match day squad since 11th February against Aberdeen.
Maeda, Kyogo, Iwata, Turnbull and Haksabanovic all came on as subs for Abada, Oh, O'Riley, Hatate and Jota. Bain, Taylor, Summers and Forrest were the unused subs.
As I mentioned in the Hearts Match Stats report https://www.celtictrends.com/post/hearts-v-celtic-match-stats-2 it is interesting to look at the passing stats of the centre backs especially with Kobayashi's inclusion in recent games.
Usually for Celtic the left centre back makes the most passes and for the season it averages about 12% more for the left centre back than the right centre back.
In this game Carl Starfelt had the most passes in the game with 109 which was despite the fact he was playing at right centre back. Kobayashi had 106 passes. Starfelt's accuracy was 94% and Kobayashi's was 84%. Starfelt also received the most passes on 78 with Ralston 2nd most on 71 and Kobayashi then on 70.
Against Hearts Kobayashi had 37% more passes than Starfelt and received 31% more. Both had 88% accuracy.
33% of Kobayashi's passes were to midfielders and forwards while it was 32% for Starfelt. Against Rangers in the Semi Final it was 28% for Carter-Vickers and 18% for Starfelt so a big jump in this game which was interesting.
Kobayashi had 47% of his passes to midfielders and forwards against Hearts versus Starfelt's 30% so Kobayashi's positive variance of passes to midfielders and forwards wasn't as evident as it was against Hearts. Although it is worth noting Starfelt's jump from 18% in the Semi Final to 32% yesterday. Playing at right centre back seems to help him with those passes to midfielders and forwards.
One other notable stat was that 11% of Kobayashi's passes were to Joe Hart. Was that a confidence in involving the keeper in the passing game or was it fear and an easy option to help? For comparison it was 8% of Starfelt's passes that went to Hart and it was 4% and 3% for Carter-Vickers and Starfelt in the Semi Final. Kobayashi had 7% of his passes to Hart against Hearts at Tynescastle.
Against Hearts Kobayashi had 93% more forward passes than Starfelt but against Rangers it was actually 10% less forward passes than Starfelt.
The most passing combinations of the match yesterday were Kobayashi to Starfelt at 31 and also Starfelt to Ralston at 31 too.
Looking at the stats for all 6 derby games this season (below) you can see that Rangers' 16 shots at goal and the 8 on target was the most in any derby this year. Rangers had the lowest possession at 32%. Celtic's 591 passes were the most by far this season and Rangers 272 was the lowest by far.
In my preview I highlighted the top xG contributors in the Derby and for Rangers their highest contributor has been Sakala and he continued with that being the top xG contributor in this game with 0.67 xG. He also had the top Post Shot xG with 0.78 and joint top xA on 0.20.
Rangers full backs are usually the players that contribute the most xA in this game but they only had 0.09 (Tavernier) and 0.02 (Yilmaz) in this game.
The other joint top for xA was Ralston. For Celtic the other xA contributors were Abada on 0.09 and McGregor on 0.08.
For xG for Celtic the best was Oh on 0.6, O'Riley on 0.36 and Abada on 0.24 with only one Celtic player registering any Post Shot xG and that was O'Riley on 0.07 as he had Celtic's only shot on target.
In my match preview I did predict Celtic to have the first player carded at 19/20 and that is an old favourite bet of mine that I've profited from over the years.
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