Celtic tactical and data match report against Midtjylland

There is always the next game, and that means looking ahead to Hearts on Saturday night.

But that doesn't mean we can't learn from failure.

Here, we look back at the StatsBomb data from the game to give you a match report experience like no other.

xG

As you can see from the graph, Celtic were creating better chances for the whole of the 90 minutes. However, once Midtjylland scored they improved significantly and this improvement continues through extra time. Postecoglou's men failed to create anything of note after the 85th minute. It's also interesting that based on xG, Celtic would have only won this game eight per cent of the time based on chances.

Average position and passing maps

The warmer the colour the more dangerous the player was in the game so it's no surprise to see Evander as the game's key player. It's no surprise the mercurial Brazillian performed so well given he positioned himself smartly in an area where Celtic had little coverage to the right of Soro in the centre. The entirety of Celtic's team is cool with only Edouard and Turnbull moving out of the lowest rungs of xG. You can see from the positions of the players that a lot of this game was fought on Celtic's left side with McGregor, Christie and Taylor battling against Anderson, Charles and Dalsgaard. 

READ MORE: Celtic's last four Champions League exits analysed and the same mistakes that keep being repeated

Pressure maps

Once again, the war for supremacy on Celtic's left is obvious. You can also see Postecoglou's men heavily pressuring the space where Evander occupied, even if they didn't manage to snuff out the Brazillian.

Shot maps

Midtjylland slightly overperformed their xG with two goals scored from an expected goal tally of 1.75. Both goals came from good areas of the box. Celtic have had issues with set-pieces for a while and the Danes racked up 0.8 from these opportunities showing there may still be an issue there under the new manager.

Celtic didn't create much and Callum McGregor's goal was a low-value shot that statistically would have only hit the net once in every fifty tries. 

READ MORE: Celtic’s beautiful Champions League vision is now a pipe dream - Jamie Flynn

Player Data

James Forrest made a huge difference when he came on for Liel Abada and we can see in the data what he added to the game with a 0.55 xG in his time on the pitch, far better than any of his team-mates.