Rangers 2 xG 1.99
(Kent 47 and Tavernier 53 PEN) Celtic 2 xG 1.17 (Maeda 5 and Kyogo 88) Celtic lead the way early on for xG but Rangers then overtook during injury time in the first half as the half time xG was 0.86 to 0.71 in Rangers favour.
In the 5 league games previously between these two sides (4 last season and 1 this season) Celtic had more xG in the first half in 4 out of 5 and Rangers had more xG in the second half in 4 out of 5. So continuing with that theme this game again saw Celtic with more of their xG in the first half (61%) and Rangers had more of their xG in the second half (57%).
Celtic had only 0.05 xG from set plays while Rangers had 0.54. This is the most xG from set plays any of these two teams have had in the last 6 derby league games.
Non Penalty Post Shot xG was 13% higher for Rangers and 15% lower for Celtic versus Non Penalty Pre Shot xG.
xPts for the game then were 2.01 for Rangers and 0.68 for Celtic due to the xG even though Non Penalty xGD was only 0.03 in Rangers favour.
Celtic had the most possession in this match at 61% but that doesn't necessarily go for anything as in the previous derby league games this season and last season the losing team had more of the possession.
Celtic's most dominant spell for possession was between 10 and 15 minutes when they had 81.5% possession and the second most dominant spell was between 5 and 10 minutes when they had 79.4%. The lowest being 30 to 35 minutes where Celtic had just 36.4% possession.
The five players with the most possession in the game were Starfelt (9.4%), Carter-Vickers (8.7%), McGregor (6.9%), Johnston (6.9%) and Kamara (5.2%).
Passing per position for each team show where each team focussed on possession with Celtic having 31% of the team's passing coming from the centre backs and for Rangers it was only 21% with their midfield three having 35% of the team's total. Celtic's midfield three was 31%. Rangers wide two forwards had 14% while Celtic's had 10% and for the full backs it was 17% for Rangers and 21% for Celtic.
Starfelt played the most passes (86) and also received the most passes (55). 20 of those passes coming from Carter-Vickers.
Starfelt's average pass length was 21.1m which was less than Carter-Vickers 22.1m, Davies 25.9m and Goldson 27.9m. Celtic lined up with;
Hart
Johnston, Carter-Vickers, Starfelt and Taylor
O'Riley, McGregor and Hatate
Forrest, Kyogo and Maeda
This was two changes from the line up against Hibernian with Johnston coming in for his debut replacing Mooy (with Hatate moving back into midfield) and Forrest coming in for Abada.
Juranovic, Mooy, Abada, Jota and Giakoumakis coming on as subs for Taylor, O'Riley, Forrest, Maeda and Hatate.
Celtic's average formation line was 50.9m which was slightly higher than the 48.7m in the match in September.
Rangers average player positions shows how advanced their full backs are which is a similar strategy to when Beale was there before (along with Steve Gerrard) and the full backs for Rangers usually create their most chances and have the highest xA.
Rangers average formation line was 52.9m which was not as high as the game at Celtic Park in which they had an average formation line of 54.1m.
60% of Rangers non penalty chance created came from their full backs with Tavernier on 0.23 xA and Barisic on 0.48 xA.
Celtic's highest for xA was Mooy on 0.11.
Highest contributors for non penalty xG were Maeda 0.55, Tillman 0.39, Morelos 0.34, Kyogo 0.29, Sakala 0.26 and Kent 0.20.
Sakala had the most touches in the penalty area with 7 and second most was Tillman on 6. Maeda was joint third on 5 with Morelos.
Also interesting reading is PPDA and Celtic and Rangers both had a PPDA of 10 in this game however notably Celtic had a PPDA of 45 in the time period between 31 to 45 minutes indicating less defensive actions during that period and allowing Rangers to dominate. Celtic's best spell was between 61 to 75 minutes when the PPDA was 4.8. The highest for Rangers was 17.6 in the last 15 minutes. PPDAs from the first match at Celtic Park were 7.91 for Celtic and 12.79 for Rangers.
Carter-Vickers had 10 interceptions, 18 recoveries and won 7 out of 7 aerial duels and 2 blocked shots.
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