Ross County 1
xG 0.39
(Iacovitti 58)
Celtic 3
xG 1.74
(Kyogo 48, Jenz 84 and Abada 91)
Celtic started the game brightly with 118 accurate passes in the first 15 minutes and restricted Ross County to just 3 accurate passes in the 60 to 75 minute spell. Hart and Carter-Vickers have still not conceded a league goal in the last 15 minutes since they signed for the club.
Celtic's most dominant spell was just before half time when they had 87% possession.
Celtic didn't have any clear cut chances in the first half and like last week's game against Aberdeen (and unlike last season) Celtic had more xG in the 2nd half than in the 1st.
Celtic had three 0.11 xG chances in the first half which fell to Kyogo, O'Riley and Maeda while Iacovitti had the best chance of the first half but he failed to hit the target from that 14% opportunity. That was Ross County's best chance of the match.
However Celtic rectified this early into the 2nd half when Kyogo converted a 36% chance and left the Ross County keeper with no chance with his shot having a Post Shot xG of 0.95.
Celtic then conceded a 8% chance goal just 10 minutes later and only really had a 20% Giakoumakis chance after this until Moritz Jenz scored on his debut from an 11% expected goal chance. His header had a Post Shot xG of 0.18. In between this Ross County had a free kick which had a 0.09 xG and while Fotmob have it as a Post Shot 0.04 xG I would have to disagree with their metric on this one. But maybe their model doesn't take into account how much time Joe Hart would have got to see the ball (which wasn't much).
Abada then cemented the win from a 7% chance that was 48% when it left his foot.
Jota getting a hat-trick of assists in this game and an xA of 0.87 from his 6 key passes. Juranovic had an xA of 0.55.
Looking at the stats and comparing them against games against Ross County last season there are not as many that improved as they did against Aberdeen last week. Maybe Ross County are a better team now than they were last season or at least more organised.
Celtic's xG of 1.74 is the lowest in the last five games and the second lowest if you include 2020/2021 season as well. The xG on Lennon's last game was 1.64.
The reason for the low xG was due to an xG per shot of just 0.076 however 41% of the game was played in Ross County's defensive third and 34% of Celtic's passes came from the midfield which was mainly impacted by Callum McGregor's 95 total passes. This was up from 32% against Aberdeen last week and last season's average of 30%.
Celtic lined up with two changes from the game against Aberdeen with the predicted change of Turnbull for the injured Hatate and then the surprise that Welsh wasn't in the squad and Jenz was starting. It was later confirmed Welsh had a bug.
McCarthy and Starfelt (back from injury) took Turnbull's and Jenz's bench positions from last week.
Best play of the day for me was Celtic's 3rd goal. Taylor's pressuring and composure when passing was great to see and all involved in the goal played their part not least Abada who executed it superbly.
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Tony@CelticTrends.com
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