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Writer's pictureTony McLaughlin

Celtic's 55 minutes xG


In my post match review of the Leipzig game https://www.celtictrends.com/post/rb-leipzig-v-celtic-match-stats I mentioned that Celtic have had varied performances levels from 0-55 minutes versus 55-90 minutes.


Against both Real Madrid and Leipzig Celtic were outperforming their opponents on expected goals after 55 minutes.


However both opponents dramatically increase their xG in the remaining 35 minutes of the game.


Real Madrid had 0.7 xG for the first 55 minutes and 1.15 for the remaining 35 minutes and Leipzig had 0.42 and 1.84.


To put this in context if we pro rata'd each figure on a per 90 minute basis (to help look at the xG as a game total) it would relate to a 1.14 (0-55) and 2.96 (55-90) for Real Madrid. A 160% increase in performance in those last 35 minutes.


For Leipzig it is 0.69 (0-55) and 4.73 (55-90) and an incredible 585% increase in performance.


On an individual game basis 1.14 and 0.69 are possibly ok to deal with but 2.96 and 4.73 will guarantee defeat 99% of the time.


For Celtic's performance it changes from 1.4 (0-55) and 1.02 (55-90) against Real Madrid and 1.49 (0-55) and 0.08 (55-90) against Leipzig for pro rata'd per 90 xG measures.


Something Celtic need to work on to sustain their performance throughout the 90 minutes.


It would be good to hear opinions on the above and any thoughts people have on why and what resolutions Celtic could potentially have.


I mentioned in https://www.celtictrends.com/post/celtic-champion-league-pressing that Celtic have high quantity pressures and low quality and this could be leading to tiredness and therefore a reason for the massive change in performance after 55 minutes.


However against Shakhtar it worked the other way with Celtic having improved performance after 55 minutes and Shaktar's declined.

Again pro rata'd to per 90 the figures would be 1.15 (0-55) and 2.01 (55-90) for Celtic and 0.51 (0-55) and 0.15 (55-90) for Shakhtar. Although game state needs to be taken into context here as Shakhtar were probably happy with the draw position.


It is worth noting that against Shakhtar Celtic had 56% possession and against Real Madrid and Leipzig it was 35% and 41% respectively.

Having less possession and high quantity and low quality pressing must be impact on performance in the latter part of the game.



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