Celtic 6 xG 6.16
(Furuhashi 20, 25 and 67, Rogic 49, Ralston 84 and Edouard 90 PEN)
Dundee 0 xG 0.26
Before kick off our probabilities of winning the game were 76% (a defeat 8% and draw 16%). The team line up was; - Hart - Ralston, Welsh, Starfelt and Taylor - Rogic, McGregor and Turnbull - Abada, Furhashi and Christie
Welsh, Rogic and Christie coming in to the team at the expense of Bitton, Soro and Forrest. It was a home debut for Hart, Starfelt and Furuhashi and a home league debut for Abada. Subs used were Forrest, Edouard and Montgomery who came on for Rogic, Furuhashi and Taylor.
Each player's average position for the match is shown on the image opposite.
McGregor played the deeper midfield role to help orchestrate the game and this midfield trio is ideal for home games against lower opposition. However I wouldn't be confident in the defensive abilities of those 3 when going to Ibrox at the end of the month. Turnbull also played slightly deeper (in the McGregor role).
Dundee were without Anderson and Mullen as mentioned in the preview but Robertson was also out of the starting line up from the previous week. In came Sweeney, Byrne and Sheridan.
Against Hearts Starfelt and Bitton had 19% and 15% contribution to the team's total accurate passes with Soro, Turnbull and McGregor on 10%, 9% and 8%. However against Dundee you can see the impact that McGregor and Turnbull had in more deeper roles as they contributed 16% and 11% of the team's total with Starfelt and Welsh on 14% and 16% and 14%. However Rogic only had 2% of the team's accurate passes.
Carl Starfelt had the most accurate passes again at 106 and he also had the best passing accuracy at 96%. McGregor followed closely with 104 and 95%.
Top rated player by stats sites was Christie with a rating of 9.69 (Fotmob) and 10 (Whoscored). He had 3 assists, 8 key passes, won 2 out of 2 dribbles and 2 out of 2 tackles.
Many fans say Christie had a poor season for us last season but I think a lot have forgotten he had a good start for us;
- First two away games of the season (Kilmarnock and Dundee Utd) Christie was MotM
- He was then played up front by himself for the next two games (Ferencvaros and Motherwell)
- And then dropped for Ntcham against Ross County away
- He then came back in for St Mirren away and was MotM
- He then was put up front again (this time with Ajeti) against Hibernian at home and again got MotM
- And then dropped for Ntcham against St Johnstone away
- Then he missed the Rangers game as was self isolating.
- He then played in the games against Aberdeen, Motherwell, Hibs away and St Johnstone home (getting MotM for the Hibs and St Johnstone games).
- Then for Kilmarnock at home he was dropped again (after 2 MotM games in a row).
- Dropped 3 times and all after MotM performances.
- At that stage he had played 8 games in midfield and had 5 MotMs and also another MotM when playing up front.
- MotM from Whoscored based on stats contribution.
- He then lost his place with Turnbull coming in and Christie for me was just trying to hard (like many others in the team) with the frustrations that the team were going through. This mainly lead to his wild and erratic shooting from distance. An act of trying too hard in my opinion.
Christie is a valuable player for us and if he doesn't sign a new deal we can still use him till December and that still gives us time to negotiate a new contract with him. His performance against Dundee also reiterates what I thought was a wrong decision for him to be left out of the Hearts game.
A special mention must also go to Furuhashi with an xG of 3.5 and a hat-trick on his first league start for us. That's 4.68 xG he has had in the last 2 games and only played an average of 67 minutes per game.
Looking at the match trends in 15 minute segments we were quite consistent across the game and improving as each half was progressing which is a good sign (fitness wise). Our best spell for possession was 15 to 30 minutes with 79% possession and 2 goals scored. Our best spell For passing accuracy our best spell was just after this and just before half time with 94%. With confidence flying 75 to 90 minutes was our best spell for touches with 173 and also 2 goals. Dundee's worst spell for passing accuracy with 48% was in the first 15 minutes of the game. Was this down to good pressing from us and starting the game on the front foot?
Overall our passing accuracy was 92% which when combined with all last season's 38 games and this season's 2 games was top. Again well above our average of 85% for all 38 games last season.
Also ranking as top were shots at goal (31), xG per shot (0.213) and xG (6.6). xG per shot is a key metric for us this year and being more efficient and effective in front of goal and our 0.213 was more than double our average of 0.103 last year. With a high quantity of shots (31) you would expect that the xG per shot may be a bit lower so to maintain that high xG per shot on 31 shots is something special. As a result our xG for the game was an incredible 6.6. No team in the SPFL had that last year. The highest being Rangers at 4.86 v Hamilton. That xG showing that it wasn't a lucky couple of goals that got us to 6 but in fact we could have and should have won the game more convincingly.
Other positives to take away from the game were accurate passes, touches, possession, box touches and xGA which all would be in top 6 if included with last season's game.
In my match preview here .... https://www.celtictrends.com/post/celtic-v-dundee-preview ....
.... I predicted Rogic would start, Furuhashi would score a hat-trick and Celtic would win 6-0.
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Tony@CelticTrends.com
Thank you Tony.
i very much appreciate this kind of analysis.
FrankM