Celtic 1
xG 2.75
(Kyogo 33)
Hearts 0
xG 1.01
Before kick off our probabilities of winning the game were 68%, a defeat 11% and draw 21%.
Our team line up was;
- 15 Hart
- 56 Ralston, 57 Welsh, 4 Starfelt and 88 Juranovic
- 18 Rogic, 42 McGregor and 14 Turnbull
- 49 Forrest, 8 Kyogo and 17 Jota
Average player positions are on the player map below.
Rogic, Forrest and Starfelt coming in for McCarthy, Abada and Carter-Vickers. Montgomery, Johnston and Bitton came on for the injured trio of Ralston, Jota and Welsh.
Starfelt had the most touches with 117 and the most accurate passes at 95. For best accuracy it was Welsh and Forrest on 94%. Turnbull had 6 key passes with Forrest on 3 and Juranovic on 3 as well.
It will be interesting to see how Juranovic does at right back if Ralston is out for a few games and you can see from his touch map (opposite) that he does progress further when playing on the right.
You can also compare it to Ralston's touch map (opposite) and notice the gap in the middle of Ralston's versus Juranovic's which looks like he can hold possession better further up the pitch.
In regards to average player positions (opposite) Juranovic's ends up in the middle due to the balance of playing some of the game on the left and some on the right.
Top rated players were Juranovic on 8.34 and 7.6 and Starfelt on 7.88 and 7.8.
xG achieved was Forrest 1.21, Kyogo 0.68, Turnbull 0.28, Jota 0.14, Rogic 0.13, Starfelt 0.09, Juranovic 0.07, Ralston 0.07, Johnston 0.07 and McGregor 0.05.
Hearts having their best spell in the 15 minutes spell of 60 to 75 minutes with 43% possession. In the 10 minute spell between 71 minutes and 81 minutes Hearts actually had 70% possession with 88 touches to our 47 touches and they had an accuracy of 91% during that 10 minutes spell (Celtic having a 70% accuracy). But during that time the xG was 0.07 for Celtic (from 1 shot) and 0 for Hearts.
Possession overall was 69% for Celtic and passing accuracy for Celtic was 88%. Hearts had 9 shots at goal to Celtic's 25 with box shots being 6 and 12. Aerials won was 58% v 42% in Celtic's favour and tackles won was 68% for Celtic and 74% for Hearts.
As mentioned in my Preview article https://www.celtictrends.com/post/preview-celtic-v-hearts
Hearts' xGA was increasing alarmingly and you can see the gaps they leave as Celtic had 2.75 xG.
Also mentioned in the preview article was my prediction of 1-0 to Celtic with the goal coming in the 33rd minute (just 5 mins out) and Ralston being the scorer. I meant an assist :)
It was a game of two halves with the first half xG 1.73v0.09 in Celtic's favour and the second half xG being a far closer 1.02v0.92.
As per normal with Celtic the left side dominated the attacking with 40% of the attacks coming down the left and 34% down the right. Hearts are normally down the right for their attacks and this was again prevalent with 47% down the right and 28% down the left.
It looks like Celtic got the benefit of the big decision tonight with Kyogo looking marginally offside. They say refereeing decisions balance themsevles out over time so maybe they are swinging in Celtic's favour now. Only another 1000 decisions like that tonight and it will be all balanced up.
Celtic Trends 🍀📈⚽️
Tony@CelticTrends.com