Edouard Squared
By James Dailey
As part of my first piece on Celtic by Numbers, I laid out my case as to why Odsonne Edouard’s talents and playing style would be better utilized with a strike partner – particularly one which plays in a more traditionally advanced and preferably central to centre right role. I was mistaken to exclude Leigh Griffiths from that piece, as I admit I had my doubts about his ability to return to play at a high level. I followed up with taking a look at how the team had performed using the 3-5-2 formation on February 9th, though the sample size remained limited at that time. As we head towards Sunday’s derby, and with the sour taste of the two December derbies still fresh in many of our mouths, a fundamental question many supporters have is whether Lennon will go 3-5-2?
Martin Melly of the 20 Minute Tims podcast (I’ve been a charter Patreon supporter of the podcast) commented on a pod this past week that he had recently interviewed Neil Lennon and that Lennon had said to him that the reason they had gone to playing 2 up top was to try and build the team’s play around its best player- Edouard. I was thrilled to hear this terrific nugget from Melly! Now about that midfield….
Derby Duo
I would be shocked if Lennon does not lineup in a 3-5-2 on Sunday, though there certainly remains a lot of intrigue as to his selections to fill out the remainder of the first team. But there can be no doubt as to whom will play as the strike partnership, and it is a partnership which has proven its effectiveness to date.
The heatmaps directly below are Edouard for the 9-1-2019 game at Ibrox on the left, and Leigh Griffiths for the entire 2019-2020 season through the St. Mirren game:
As is quite clear and is a consistent theme in Edouard’s play and heatmaps, is his tendency and skill at dropping left and collecting to ball to face up and dribble at defenders. As I had hoped, a central to centre right strike partner has resulted in 1+1=3.
Here is a basic summary of attacking output from Edouard this season broken down between games in which he was the sole striker and those he’s played with Griffiths since the winter break. All figures are normalized to be per 90 minutes.
His goal and xG tallies have certainly increased, but I believe just as importantly it has unleashed his creativity. As I mentioned in a prior piece, a 0.41 xA is output of an elite attacking midfielder (number 10). If it has sometimes seemed as if Edouard has been playing like both an elite striker and elite number 10 all at the same time, it is likely because he has been!
With that effusive praise for Edouard out of the way, it is time to give Leigh Griffiths the credit he deserves. He has made skeptics like me look like a real ass – kudos.
One quick note- I’ve estimated his xA in this table to try and account for his primary role in taking corner kicks, which is still reflected in his assists per 90 minutes metric. I believe the 0.16 figure is a reasonable approximation for his xA from open play over the period.
As you can see, Griffiths’ production has been a return to his former glory and that of an elite level striker, but his creativity has also been improved by playing with Edouard. In fact, Griffiths has averaged 5.10 passes per 90 minutes to Edouard, while Edouard has averaged 3.83 passes to Griffiths. While these may not seem like big numbers, they are quite high relative to typical passing data between strike partners or even between Edouard with wings like Forrest and Moi when we’ve played in 4-2-3-1 or 4-3-3.
Conclusion
I’ve been quite critical of Lennon’s decision making this season, but he’s been bang on with pairing Edouard with another striker, and his confidence and patience with Griffiths has also proven to have been wise and rewarded. In fact, much of my criticism of Lennon relating to the Copenhagen defeat was his decision to abandon this post-break revelation. Not surprisingly, Edouard accumulated exactly zero xA in the two Copenhagen games playing as a sole striker. I hope and expect that Lennon will not make the same mistake on Sunday.