STAT ATTACK

Gaby McKay attempts to get to the bottom of Celts’ lack of creativity problem

LOSING to Rangers was never going to please Celtic fans but more than anything the manner of Saturday’s defeat has attracted the ire of supporters.

Playing at home in a derby, Neil Lennon’s side managed not one shot on target as they rarely threatened to score.

Moi Elyounoussi could have done better with a lobbed effort while sub Leigh Griffiths sniffed out a half chance but it was a limp display by the hosts.

It’s not a new problem for Celtic either, with fans noting in recent weeks performances have been sluggish even though results have remained consistent.

After their derby defeat it’s clear all is not well with the Premiership champions going forward and the numbers indicate two big issues that have to be addressed. Slow build-up. Any observer can see the midfield has been a big problem for Celtic this season.

Lennon has often favoured a trio in the middle comprised of Olivier Ntcham, Scott Brown and Callum McGregor.

The captain is 35 now and doesn’t have the mobility he used to. While the other two are tidy enough on the ball, they provide very little forward thrust.

Too oftenof that has left Celtic dodominating the ball but without being able to create much and the numbers bear that ouout.

Last Las season Celtic averaged averag 60 per cent possession posse and 593 passes passe per game, while this term that has iincreased to 65 per centc and 678 respectively. resp

That’s T not necessarily nec a problem pro in itself but bu Celtic aren’t achieving ac any penetration. pe Their key ke passes per game have halved from 16 to eight and Lennon’s side average just one through ball per game.

This ponderous build-up leads to the second attacking issue Celtic are facing. Poor chances. It began as something of a hipster’s favourite but the expected goals (xG) metric has gone mainstream recently.

Though the name might suggest a predictive quality, the metric is simply an attempt to measure the quality of chance a team creates.

For example, a penalty is scored on average 76 per cent of the time so has an xG rating of 0.76. By contrast a volley from the halfway line isn’t very likely to be scored at all so will have a very low xG value.

In essence, the higher a team’s xG number over the course of a match, the more goals we would expect them to score all other things being equal.

Against Rangers, Celtic didn’t manage one shot on target and their xG for the match came in at 0.33 – in other words if they played 100 matches with the shots they had, statistically we would expect them not to score in 67 of them.

The quality of Celtic’s chances will be of concern for them.

While the Parkhead club are hitting 2.4 goals per game, broadly in line with last season, their xG per 90 minutes has dropped from 2.1 to 1.95 – and it’s just 1.19 across all competitions in the last five matches.

Over a season a regression to the mean would be expected, indicating Celtic may not be able to keep up their current scoring rate if they don’t start creating better chances.

Even in the win over Hibs they hit three goals against an xG of 1.56 and kept a clean sheet despite an expected goals against (xGA) of 1.01.