Celtic 0
xG 2.06
Livingston 0
xG 0.11
Before kick off our probabilities of winning the game were 82%, a defeat 5% and draw 13%.
Our team line up was;
- 15 Hart
- 56 Ralston, 20 Carter-Vickers, 4 Starfelt and 88 Juranovic
- 14 Turnbull, 6 Bitton and 42 McGregor
- 11 Abada, 7 Giakoumakis and 17 Jota
There was three changes from the midweek game against Hibs with Bitton, Abada and Giakoumakis coming in for the injured Rogic and rested Johnston and Kyogo.
Johnston, Kyogo and Forrest came on as subs for Starfelt, Abada and Jota.
A vacuous stat for some but Carter-Vickers had the most touches at 138 with Bitton and Ralston next on 133 and 128.
Most accurate passes was also Carter-Vickers on 125 with Bitton (113) and McGregor (102) next. Carter-Vickers had the best accuracy with 95% with Starfelt next on 94%. McGregor and Ralston had 3 key passes.
Top rated player and my personal man of the match was Tony Ralston on 8.17 and 7.8.
NPxG achieved was Giakoumakis 0.41, Forrest 0.26, Turnbull 0.2, Ralston 0.09, Starfelt 0.07, Juranovic 0.07 and Abada 0.07
xA achieved was Forrest 0.41, Johnston 0.29, Ralston 0.14, Turnbull 0.12, McGregor 0.11, Abada 0.1, Kyogo 0.04, Giakoumakis 0.04 and Carter-Vickers 0.02.
Our right side had the most attacks at 36% with 32% on the left and 32% in the centre. A lot more attacks through the centre in this game even though there was a lot of crosses. 32% of attacks in the centre was the 2nd most this season after the Dundee game with the average in the centre for the season being 26.8%. We had 40 crosses with only 9 of them being successful.
Possession overall was 85% which was the most by far as previous best was 79%. Last season the most % any team had was Rangers with 82%.
In regards to passing the highest last season for accurate passing was 700 (for Rangers) and the highest this season was for Celtic with 731. Celtic had 799 in this game at 91% accuracy. 799 passes is quite a significant and interesting number. Please note for the I don't like passing stats police I'm not saying we are fantastic because we had 799 passes I'm just saying it is a very interesting statistic to interpret in our way.
Livingston had 2 shots at goal to Celtic's 16 and had 0 on target to Celtic's paltry 2. That's 3 games in 4 where Celtic's opponents have had 0 shots on target.
Aerials won was 71% v 29% in Celtic's favour and tackles won was 93% for Celtic and 57% for Livingston.
Celtic's NP xG was 1.27 which is the 2nd lowest of the season with the lowest being the previous game against Livingston.
Hindsight is a wonderful thing and some were being criticised for having opinions after the game which could look in hindsight. While I get there is nothing good about being smart after the event you do still have to look at things in hindsight and have an opinion. Why would you not?
In regards to hindsight then @BhoysAnalytics did highlight last week that our creative play was a worry as we weren't opening up St Johnstone until an error. I disagreed with him as I thought we totally controlled that game against a well organised St Johnstone. However maybe Ross was right (and I was wrong) and the problems he noticed came to fruition today.
In hindsight we probably would start Kyogo if playing the game again but most would have agreed with the decision to rest him at the start of the game.
I'll not mention anything more about the missed penalty even though my concerns were before the event. But this has been debated to death on social media.
During the game I did think we weren't overlapping enough on the left hand side and I would have brought on Montgomery for Juranovic. That's not a criticism of Juranovic it's just a game situation where a natural left footed left back would have been more beneficial. We also needed to have more shots from outside the box and this is ironic because this is something we have successfully (and quite rightly) stamped out of our game from last year.
A positive from the game was the urgency we did show. Many 0-0 games of the past or games we were needing a goal saw a lack of urgency (and maybe confidence) from the team. However I thought today even though there were negatives the positive was that we still looked confident and had urgency to get forward.
A disappointing day when we had the chance to go top of the league for the first time in 18 months and put a bit of pressure on Rangers for a change. Now Rangers will have got a boost from our result and a wee lift going into tomorrow.
Celtic Trends 🍀📈⚽️
Tony@CelticTrends.com