Unpacking a Taylor Mystery
There was a nice piece of analysis by @BhoysAnalytics which you can find here highlighting how Taylor’s passing was becoming more expansive and a good working relationship with Maeda forming.
Taylor has always been arguably the most creative full back in the squad over the last two seasons. I highlighted this on the Celtic Way here (please subscribe – it is simply good Celtic editors/writers (and me) writing about Celtic).
Here is chance creation from that piece:
Taylor actually surpassing Tierney for xA per 90m although Tierney still created a slightly higher number of chances.
But the question for today is “Has Taylor’s creative passing improved?”
What we witnessed versus Ross County, especially in the first half, was him taking on ambitious longer passes to take advantage of the speed of Maeda, and the great anticipation of Giakoumakis. Celtic seem to be varying their attacks and why not with such pace available!
Packing
Pack passing is a very useful proxy for creative passing, especially from deep. A Pack pass is logged for every FORWARD pass that takes at least one opponent out the game. Packing score (or Impect as the Germans call it!) is calculated based on what type of players are taken out with 3 points for an opposition defender, 2 midfielder and 1 for a forward.
Taylor’s packing volume and scores over the last three season:
Pack Pass Volume
Quite conclusive – this season he is completing over 10 Pack Passes per 90m compared to 6.48 last season.
Pack Pass Impect
In terms of the Packing Score:
A similar patter with this season his Pass Pack score being the highest of all the full backs at 58.19 (Ralston is 2nd on 53.35) compared to 35.83 last season.
So, very simply, Taylor is completing significantly (68% increase) more pack passes – i.e. more aggressive vertical passing.
Is this resulting in more chances being created?
Pack Pass Assisting
I also track the number of chances created directly from Pack Passes.
Again, here is Taylor over the last three seasons:
Here we see the opposite trend.
Despite significantly more Pack Passes, the volume that result in chances being created has fallen from 0.44 per 90m last season to 0.25 this.
The xA value of those chances created has fallen also:
Taylor is only adding 0.04 xA from pack passes despite the massive increase in volume of such line breaking passes.
Secondary Assists
Does this mean, therefore, that we should expect to see an increase in Secondary Assist volumes? That is, if the primary pass being a pack pass is not creating direct chances, but the volume has increased, should we expect an increase in the number of Secondary Assisting Passes that lead to chances?
Here are the number of Secondary Assists Passes per 90m over the last three seasons:
No!
Secondary Assisting passes are virtually the same as last season but much lower than 19/20 (1.19 compared to 1.92 per 90m).
Summary
Taylor is producing significantly more line breaking passes. However, this is not leading to more chance creation as a direct result of those passes nor even from the pass after.
What I think we are seeing here is once again the impact of a very definite style of play being implemented and the personnel implementing it as required.
What I mean is, the full backs, often inverted into central areas, have more responsibility to be getting the ball forward. This does not preclude the type of buccaneering run once associated with Tierney and now exemplified by Ralston. A muscular dash to the by-line and cross in is still occurring. But what is happening to a far greater degree is for the full backs to find ways to the ball to the wide attackers and wide and high creative “8”s for them to “do the magic”.
This makes sense rather than relying on your doughty full backs to be over burdened with the creative intricacies.
Is Taylor specifically “good” at long creative passes? Or is he being asked to play this way and therefore his numbers are up by design?
I’d say a bit of both. He has the best Pack stats of all the full backs but equally, are there better suited players to fulfil this role out there? Possibly.
What is for sure, is that the style of play the manager is implementing is having a fascinating and complex impact on performance data.
Which gets me excited, if no one else!