Do Celtic's wingers measure up to their predecessors well?

Despite Nicolas Kuhn’s opening goal, neither he nor Yang Hyun-jun on the left flank could impose themselves on the game. Replacements Luis Palma and James Forrest had contrasting fortunes. 32-year-old Forrest supported his manager's previous assertion that the veteran Celtic lifer remained the most talented winger at the club whilst the Honduran - still recovering from injury - flattered again.

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Two goals from wide players make all this sound churlish. So, I decided to go back through the records and see how wing productivity compares. A total of ten players have been utilised in the wide attacking areas this season, the most by one since I started collecting data in the 2014-15 season. That in itself is a red flag. But time plays tricks on all our memories so let’s take a deeper look.

For this exercise I have taken some key attacking metrics such as goals, assists, xA, xG and totalled the complete winger output for each season. Not all data is available for all seasons so the time frames may shift as we go through.

Goals and assists

Firstly, a simple comparison of end productivity as measured by goals and assists per 90 minutes from each year’s cadre of wingers.

The most productive year was Brendan Rodgers’ first season in 2016-17 when he had a wing combination of Scott Sinclair, Patrick Roberts and Forrest. Those three played 95 per cent of the available minutes across all competitions in the wing positions. This illustrates that you need a sweet spot of a) talented players and b) for them to be injury-free to post the best numbers. This season isn’t the worst, and there are three seasons with lower overall productivity. Both Ronny Deila’s seasons and Rodgers’ last campaign all saw lower per 90-minute productivity.

In 2014-15 it was mainly Forrest, Callum McGregor, Gary Mackay-Steven and Kris Commons on the wings. McGregor was, of course, repurposed as a midfielder. Forrest was injury-blighted for much of that campaign, and it was an ageing Commons who was the only one to surpass the equivalent of 30 games worth of minutes and he contributed 16 goals.

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In 2015-16 it was a mixture of Forrest, Mackay-Steven, Commons and latterly Roberts. None played more than 25 matches worth of minutes across all competitions. Commons managed nine goals to top the winger goal charts.

In Lennon’s final initial season, the “millions of wingers” was nine. Forrest was a mainstay that season with over 43 matches worth of minutes and an incredible 16 goals and 24 assists. But no one else managed more than 15 matches (Mohamed Elyounoussi).

This season has seen ten wingers deployed. Daizen Maeda is the only one over 20 matches worth of minutes. We are all perhaps also suffering from recency bias as last season was particularly productive from the wings in comparison. Felipe Jota, Liel Abada and Daizen Maeda racked up 71 goal contributions between them. This season the total from all wingers is 52.

Expected goals and assists

We need to check the xG and xA values as well as these are the stronger indicators of overall quality of play. We lose Deila’s seasons and Rodgers’ initial term due to a lack of data.

Wing quality - as measured by expected assists and expected non-penalty goals - is higher this season than Rodgers’ latter two seasons and Neil Lennon’s 2019-20 season (where admittedly there was often a 3-5-2 system deployed).

The last two seasons under Ange Postecoglou saw a very aggressive attacking system deployed but in truth, Celtic have always been a dominant attacking side over this period. The strength of the system may have assisted players under the Australian to be more productive, however.

In his first term, Jota managed over 34 matches worth of minutes and Abada 37. In his second season, Jota had over 32, Maeda 31 and Abada 23. He was also “lucky” with injury in this position. There was the consistency of appearance AND the benefit for Celtic of the five-substitute rule whereby a dominant side could refresh their entire attacking line-up late in a game against tiring and often already beaten opponents. That is true this season as well, of course.

Attacking Threat

I have an aggregated attacking threat score that counts various events such as chances created, shots, and entries into the box to generate a per 90-minute overall player and team attacking threat score. Here are the totals for the winger populations since 2017-18 when I started to collect them.

This season sees the highest CAT score on average across the wingers with 9.24 per player per 90 minutes. This may be due to winger inversion and an increase in wide players simply getting into the box as we have seen that chances created, and total shots have not increased over the last two seasons. An indicator of consistent attacking intent but maybe a final quality deficit?

Summary

I have bemoaned wing play quality all year.

We must acknowledge that the most productive seasons we have records for see a happy confluence of talented players, a coherent system (looking at you, Ange), and continuity of attendance AKA minimal injuries.

This season, we have seen Jota leave, Abada largely unavailable and now Maeda stricken. A record (for my data set) of ten wingers have been deployed. Add in a new manager and tweaks to the system. Then consider the impacts of recency bias in that the most productive wing play has been the last two seasons under the Australian.

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However, the CAT score data suggests that it is also true that the current wingers are getting into great positions but not producing a quality final product which meets the eye test. So, I may need to dial in the criticism and let these players get a run of games to find rhythm and consistency.

Although, it is a bit late for that now!