Shape And Recoveries Key To Celtic Loss

Nine in a row is on a knife edge for Celtic as their winning streak was bent out of shape after a tense home encounter with nearest challengers The Rangers.

In truth a scrappy, mistake strewn game was very even and had Celtic applied the pressure by taking the lead from Christie’s penalty, the outcome may have been very different.

Box Stats

The key box stats illustrate:

Celtic had most of the possession, more ball in the opposition box, got through the lines to a greater extent (Team Impect) and ultimately the xG of 2.131 to 1.287 suggests a score reversal would have been, well, expected!

There are two stats that are useful in illustrating why the Ibrox club prevailed (well, three, the missed penalty being crucial!).

Effective Long Balls

Firstly, Defenders Packed shows that although Celtic built good first stage possession from the back to the full backs especially (Frimpong and Bolingoli lead the team with 10 Pack Receives each), they couldn’t progress the ball to the attacking players with sufficient regularity.

Johnston received 8 forward passes but the rest (Christie, Edouard and Forrest) tallied 9 between them). Simply, The Rangers were adept at leading Celtic down the flanks but then with the front three dropping wide, and Jack, Davis and Kamara doing a ton of coverage, could not progress from there often enough.

By contrast, The Rangers, although playing much fewer successful forward passes, were able to get Aribo, Kent and Morelos in possession more regularly. Between the three of them they received 22 Pack Passes and this directly led to two chances. Goldson found his forwards 4 times taking out a total of 23 players. The Rangers took out defenders with forwards passes 22 times compared to only 10 by Celtic.

The Rangers, with a lead to hold onto, were able to maintain shape. This is a well drilled and settled side. Despite the volume of matches being up there with Celtic as the most by any club in Europe, they remain freakily free of injury. Gerrard was the league’s arch tinkerer early in the SPFL season. But in the last 7 SPFL matches he has only made 10 changes.

They maintained a very disciplined 4-3-3 narrow shape and admirable work rate to hound Celtic when the came near half way. Forster was allowed to distribute freely – 11 open play passes and 0 given away. Celtic struggled then to make headway from the halfway line.

Recoveries

The other key stat that highlights The Rangers approach is Recoveries. A recovery is when after a challenge or clearance or otherwise generated lose ball, the ball is taken into possession.

Whereas Celtic recovered the ball 99 times, for The Rangers it was 111. This number will be high against teams who press effectively or who play to compete on second balls. Think Cluj – 154 recoveries.

The Rangers shape is predicated on maintaining consistent and minimal distance thus a team mate is often in close proximity when a header or challenge or clearance is to be battled for. Essentially, they were more effective in winning the “second ball” i.e. the second action after the pass or challenge.

With Celtic trying to stretch the game, there was more spacing between their players and less chance of picking up the lose balls.

The Rangers made use of longer passes to the front three more effectively than Celtic, and thus got their attacking players into the game more often. Celtic failed to consistently play through a narrow and compact defensive alignment.

Conclusion

Ultimately Allan McGregor had to make two very good saves and Davis cleared two off the line whilst Forster had nothing much to do outside the goals. But Celtic need to find a way of exerting better control in these matches and find a solution to the compact press.

The boot room brains trust needs to change approach or nine in a row will soon disappear.