Lessons Learned From Livingston
Celtic have the rare luxury of a home 3pm start to get the SPFL campaign back on track again facing promoted Ross County. All have had two weeks to ponder the nightmare at Livingston. Lessons need to be learned. As I showed in Europe and Plastic Excuses, there is no basis in historical results to say that Celtic perform sub optimally either on artificial surfaces or following European ties (or both in this case). In short, we can’t “blame” the pitch or coming off a European game.
Powers of Recovery
Celtic players left the pitch and (presumably) ended their warm downs at around 22:00 on the Thursday following the win versus CFR Cluj. Kick off against Livingston was 12:00 on the Sunday. Allowing for a warm up an hour before kick-off, 61 hours had elapsed between ending one tie and physical prep for the next. This is significantly less that the 72 hours minimum recommended to recover physical capabilities following playing a football match. From scienceforsport.com, the following highlights recovery from rigours both physical and mental following a typical match.
All players are different physiologically. Some may recover more quickly than others. Lennon decided to make just one change from the Cluj tie – Bauer replaced Elhamed who subsequently was found to be suffering a viral issue. I would think it unlikely all 9 outfield players would have recovered to the same degree over this period. I would be interested what tests and KPIs Celtic use to assess this. Specifically, I was surprised Christie started given the exuberance of his performance against Cluj. It was very similar to his career high outing in the win against Leipzig last season. The sheer physical effort would have been immense. Also, Elyounoussi completed his first 90 minutes for Celtic against Cluj. His last 90-minute outing was on 4th May 2019 away at West Ham United for Southampton. Now, for transparency, I had Elyounoussi as Bhoy of the Match against Livingston, but it was a poor man’s choice. It is surprising he had another 90 minutes in this match. In summary, and being smart after the event, I am surprised Lennon did not make more changes for the Livingston tie given the lack of recovery time. I said in my preview on A Celtic State of Mind that it was no surprise if Lennon made few changes given the impending International break. However, that is not to say he should have.
A Tired Performance?
Being a player down after 26 minutes clearly impacted the game but Celtic had a similar experience away to Hamilton Academical in winning 3-0 when McGregor was sent off in a similar manner to Christie. With 10 players Celtic still dominated possession and created the better of the chances (xG 1.784 to 1.341). I posit that the collective lack of optimal conditioning would be more of a factor. There is considerable circumstantial evidence.
72% pass completion is the lowest of the season bar playing that way by design at Ibrox
54 pack passes are 14 below average – Celtic were inaccurate in their forward passing
A season low 8 defenders were taken out with Pack Passes
Shot Accuracy was 29% against a season average of 38%
Progressive runs were 22 compared to an average of 38
On average Celtic win 46% of tackles, it was 36% here
Celtic win 53% of all challenges (defensive aerial dominance – Ajer and Jullien) but 46% here
4 defensive errors compared to a 2.4 average
29 possessions won back compared to 36 average
Lost the ball 12 times in own defensive third compared to 7 average
4.52 Passes Per Defensive Action compared to an average 6.67
For the first goal, Celtic’s defence are, frankly, all over the place:
A Comedy of Errors, Lacking Humour
Ajer has lost the ball in midfield allowing Livingston to break, he does recover
In typical style, having made a mistake, he is keen to “do something” to rectify – in this case rush out to Crawford vacating space in behind
Bauer is not alert to the positioning of the other defenders
McGregor is caught forward
Brown is not screening the central defence as he has been pulled left
It’s a mess – tired minds and bodies perhaps? All of this can be associated with sub optimal mental and physical alertness or capability.
Summary
I can show that the pitch and the context of the game following a European match are not predictors of poor Celtic results. What is clear is that the players selected had insufficient recovery time to be optimally conditioned for this match. Celtic have a large squad and this was perhaps a time to use it based on the physiological monitoring of the players. I know this reads as being clever after the event, but I do feel there are clear lessons here for next time. That performance was unexpected given the feel-good evolution of Lennon’s squad and the pragmatic yet decisive start to the season.