Over the next three weeks Celtic face two potentially season-defining fixtures; the return leg against AZ Alkmaar and the first meeting with Rangers under Ange Postecoglou’s management, bookended by eminently winnable home ties against St Mirren and Ross County.

While Rangers have stuttered and the Buddies and the Staggies are winless it's too early to draw any conclusions from this season but last term's stats reveal many interesting details about all three of the Bhoys’ upcoming Premiership opponents.

St Mirren

Celtic host St Mirren today and one intriguing way in which the visitors have changed since last season is in terms of their attacking personnel. In 2021/22 league action so far they’ve used Curtis Main and Eamonn Brophy as a partnership, relying on the former’s strength in the air and the latter’s ability to generate shots to try and address the fact that in the previous campaign St Mirren created the second-fewest Expected Goals of all twelve teams in the division from open play.

Celtic Way:

However, Brophy’s propensity to have a go from almost anywhere might lead to a continuation of the same issues as last season when St Mirren took the fourth most shots on average per match, shot on average from the furthest distance away from goal, had the second fewest shots where only the goalkeeper was between the shot-taker and the goal and had the lowest average xG per shot. In short, they shot quite a lot and mostly not from good spots.

Celtic Way:

Without the ball last season the Buddies were a fairly well organised but quite passive unit. They made the third fewest pressures of opposition players [Celtic and Rangers the lowest mainly due to the amount of possession they average] and were rated as the least aggressive team in the league by StatsBomb’s metrics. In fact, the proportion of an opponent’s pass recipients that were tackled, fouled or pressured within two seconds of receiving the ball by St Mirren has been the lowest in the Premiership for every campaign from 2018/19 onwards.

Celtic Way:

Their strategy did allow them to limit the quality of chances they conceded generally and this was quite evident in Celtic’s loss at home to the Buddies early this year when the Hoops attempted twenty shots with an average xG per shot of just 0.053.

As a means of comparison Postecoglou’s side had an average xG per open play shot in the 6-0 win over Dundee of 0.215 One final quirk to look out for in this fixture; David Turnbull may be very reliant on his right foot but St Mirren’s young midfielder Ethan Erhahon was the most left foot dependent player in the Premiership last season.

Rangers

The standout statistical story of Rangers’ 2020/21 season was an overperformance of goals relative to xG of a level that may prove to be unsustainable.

Celtic Way:

Rangers, who Celtic travel to face next Sunday, scored 92 goals against an xG of 75.07 and allowed 13 goals against 27.12 xG conceded. While league winners often outperform expectation, and there is a credible hypothesis that teams with a clear financial advantage over their competitors could do so to a greater and more sustainable degree. 

Rangers’ xG Difference subtracted from their Goal Difference was 31.05 which is significantly more than each of the league title winners in England, France, Italy, Germany and Spain which ranged from 9 for Manchester City to 22.4 for Atlético de Madrid. It seems unlikely that overperformance of that extent is repeatable and their relatively poor start to this season was not entirely unpredictable.

Celtic Way:

Last season Rangers did dominate in many attacking stats; making the most successful passes within twenty metres of the opposition goal, delivering the greatest number of crosses into the box, completing the largest amount of passes within the opponent’s penalty area and having the highest average xG per shot.

Celtic Way:

The Ibrox side made the second most counter pressure regains - winning the ball back within ten seconds of losing possession themselves - and allowed the fewest dribbles by opponents which helped them to concede the fewest passes inside their own box and face the fewest shots from open play. However, when they did give up a chance it tended to be a good one as evidenced by their shots conceded having the highest xG on average.

Celtic Way:

Finally, in stark contrast with Celtic, Rangers excelled at defending set-pieces and conceded the fewest goals per 90 from them in the league. In fact, Odsonne Edouard’s headed equaliser in the May fixture was the only Premiership goal against Rangers in 2020/21 from a corner, free-kick delivery or throw-in despite opponents generating 5.63 xG with 72 shots from those types of plays.

Ross County

An international break featuring three Scotland matches falls after the Ibrox clash before the domestic campaign resumes with the visit of Ross County to Celtic Park on Saturday the 11th of September. In 2020/21 the Staggies were quite limited at both ends of the pitch although there were some signs of improvement after their mid-season managerial change with an uptick in xG difference and a reduction in the number of passes they were allowing per defensive action.

Celtic Way:

County had the third lowest xG difference at the end of the season as they adopted a patient, verging on ponderous, style of attacking. The distance towards goal from the start of one of their possessions which ended in a shot divided by the total distance travelled in buildup to the shot was the greatest in the league. An inefficient, cross heavy approach in the final third combined to create the third fewest shots per match. In addition, they won just two penalties which was the fewest in the league.

Celtic Way:

Of the pressures the Dingwall club exerted on opposition players they made the lowest proportion in their opponent’s half of all Premiership teams and the average distance from their own goal at which they made defensive actions was the second lowest in the league. This was a team that tended to retreat when out of possession and as a result Ross County allowed their opponents the most dribbles and the second most successful passes within twenty metres of their goal.

Celtic Way:

One way in which their strategy of tending to only act when close to their own goal backfired is that they picked up the most yellow cards, 2.08 per match, conceded the second most shots from set pieces per 90 and gave away fourteen penalties which was the most in the league.

Overall the Staggies conceded eighteen goals from free-kicks and penalties which, along with other 2020/21 stats from this article, could be details to look out for throughout these three matches for Celtic.