Celtic 2
xG 2.74
(Maeda 4 and Juranovic 25)
Hibernian 0
xG 0.7
Before kick off our probabilities of winning the game were 71%, a defeat 9% and draw 20%.
Possession was 53% v 47% in Hibs's favour and that was the first time domestically this season we had less possession than our opponents. We have only once had less xG than our opponents and that was in the League Cup Final versus Hibs. Our previously lowest possession domestically was 59% and that was again against Hibs and was in our match at Easter Road.
Hibs consistently had most possession throughout the game with only the 60-75 minute period going in Celtic's favour. Celtic actually had more touches of the ball in 75-90 minutes (127 touches) but this was only 46% of the possession.
Overall touches were 757 v 672 in Hibs's favour. Hibs also had the most accurate passes at 501 v 431 with both teams having an accuracy of 85%. A definite sign of Maloney's influence as before he came in the passing accuracy average was 74% (with the highest at 82%). The last 3 games for Hibs has seen passing accuracy of 82%, 88% and 85% in this match.
Our team line up was;
- 15 Hart
- 88 Juranovic, 20 Carter-Vickers, 4 Starfelt and 3 Taylor
- 18 Rogic, 42 McGregor and 41 Hatate
- 11 Abada, 38 Maeda and 49 Forrest
Following the 3-5-2 versus St Johnstone Celtic were back to the usual 4-3-3 formation.
With recovering time since 26th December and the chance for new signings there were 6 changes with Hart, Taylor, McGregor, Hatate, Maeda and Forrest coming in for Barkas, Welsh, McCarthy, Bitton, Scales and Kyogo.
Giakoumakis, Ideguchi, Johnston and Jota coming on as subs for Maeda, Hatate, Abada and Forrest.
Maloney looks to have continued with the 3-5-2 he has played since he came in and again using a left back as the left sided centre back.
Hanlon had the most touches with 116 and Juranovic had the most touches of a Celtic player with 108. Juranovic having 7.6% of the possession. Juranovic had the most accurate passes of a Celtic player with 60 with an accuracy of 79%. Abada had the best accuracy at 96% but it was on only 23 passes.
The top rated player was Juranovic with 8.4 & 8.9 and Starfelt on 8 & 8 was next.
Juranovic and Hatate had 3 key passes each.
For NP xG it was Abada on 0.81, Maeda on 0.4, Hatate and Forrest on 0.17, Rogic on 0.14, Starfelt on 0.12, Jota on 0.6, Carter-Vickers on 0.05 and Juranovic on 0.03.
For xA it was Taylor 0.44, Rogic 0.27, Juranovic 0.22 and Abada 0.19.
Taylor has received a lot of criticism in the past and it has been mentioned recently that he is the weakest link in the team and from myself included. However 0.44 xA is an impressive output.
Another who has had criticism recently has been Starfelt and some of it was fair. I couldn't argue with the facts in his criticism however I did dispute the view that he has been as bad as some others of the past and I do believe he is a decent back up to Carter-Vickers and Jullien (when fit).
Starfelt has a 61% aerial duel win rate for the season and there was a wee spell of 5 games (3 before injury and 2 after) where that rose to 84%. Against Hibs Starfelt had 6 aerial duels and won 100% of them and he also had 4 tackles and won 100% of them as well.
Hibs had 5 shots at goal to Celtic's 21 with box shots being 5 for Hibs and 11 for Celtic.
Aerials won was 59% v 41% in Celtic's favour and tackles won was 70% for Celtic and 65% for Hibs.
NP xG split by half was;
- 1st half 0.76 v 0.65
- 2nd half 1.19 v 0.05
0.98 (50.2%) of Celtic's NP xG was from set plays and 0 (0%) of Hibs's xG was from set plays. It was mentioned in my preview that Hibs are the lowest in the league for creating xG from set plays.
Post Shot xG was 2.33 v 0.00 versus pre-shot NP xG of 1.95 v 0.7
Against the norm the majority of Celtic's attacks were down the right as 42% were down the that side and 32% down the left hand side.
The average for the season to date prior to last night was 40% left and 33% right.
Juranovic heat map opposite.
Juranovic making an obvious difference in build up and last night's may also be impacted by the fact 51% of Hibs's attacks came down their right. Therefore potentially pegging back Greg Taylor.
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Tony@CelticTrends.com