The unheralded Matt O'Riley Celtic magic that underpins Postecoglou's Hoops vision

The classy midfielder has been Celtic’s creator-in-chief, assisting five goals in six Scottish Premiership starts before being rested for the disappointing loss to St Mirren.

O’Riley’s underlying creative numbers highlight just how much of a miss he was from the start in that shock defeat in Paisley.

So far this season, the Denmark under-21 international has the highest open play key passes of any player in the Scottish Premiership, averaging 2.81 per 90.

His xG Assisted number, StatsBomb’s metric that is calculated from the expected goal value of an assisted shot, of 0.57 per 90 is also unrivalled in the league (players that have played a minimum of 300 minutes) after seven matches.

O’Riley’s importance to Ange Postecoglou’s side as a creative force is clear.

However, as productive as the former Fulham youngster has been with the ball, he has been just as efficient without it.

Here, we look at the important role O’Riley plays in Celtic’s off-the-ball system.

The dataset used for the scatter graphs includes all Scottish Premiership central midfielders that have played at least 400 league minutes this season. Each metric is per 90 with all data sourced from TCW's data provider, StatsBomb. 

This is of course a very small sample of games with at least another 400-500 minutes of data required to draw robust conclusions.  

However, this can still give some insight into how O’Riley has performed without the ball in the opening weeks of the season, as well as showing how he compares to other midfielders in the Scottish Premiership.

Role out of possession

Before diving into the numbers, it is worth defining what O’Riley’s role is when Celtic are out of possession.

Previously described as a 'pressing machine' by his former manager at MK Dons Russell Martin, O’Riley is a key cog in Celtic’s press – more often than not tasked with being the midfielder who moves up to form a front two when the opposition has possession.

His physical attributes, including his stamina and deceptive speed, make him well suited to be the one of the midfield three that presses highest while keeping him higher up the pitch also means he is positioned to make the most of his considerable creative talents when Celtic do turn the ball over.

Here we can see an example of his positioning when Celtic set up to press from the recent draw with Shakhtar Donetsk in the Champions League with O’Riley forming a front two alongside striker Kyogo Furuhashi.

With Reo Hatate dropping in alongside Callum McGregor to form a double pivot, Celtic often resemble a 4-4-2 out of possession this season.

This first scatter graph, which shows the number of pressures in the opposing half v average pressure distance, highlights O’Riley’s role in leading Celtic’s high press from the front further.

We can of course see the correlation between pressures in the opposing half v average pressure distance, the scale of which is the x-axis of the pitch, measured from 0-100.

What we can also see is that no central midfielder has pressed the ball higher in the Scottish Premiership so far this season than O’Riley, while he also clocks the second most pressures in the opposing half per 90, 8.97.

Pressing

Having assessed where O’Riley presses, we can look at his volume and efficiency so far this season in greater detail.

This next scatter shows general pressures (possession-adjusted) v the number of pressure regains, and the number of times a player’s team won the ball back within five seconds of the player pressuring an opponent.

O’Riley boasts more possession-adjusted pressures than any other central midfielder in the Scottish Premiership with 25.05 per 90. He is also above average in this dataset for his pressure regains, with Celtic winning the ball back within five seconds of his pressures 2.46 times per 90.

Counter-pressing

Winning the ball back as quickly as possible is a key aim of Celtic’s system off the ball and, in this department, O’Riley is pivotal again.

He has the highest number of counter-pressures, pressures exerted within five seconds of a turnover, of any player in this dataset with 4.75 per 90 so far this season.

He scores below average for counter-pressure regains, 0.2 per 90. As mentioned, it is very early in the season to draw concrete conclusions but this may be one area he could look to make gains in his pressing game.

This will certainly be one metric to keep an eye on as more data comes through as the season progresses.

Lastly on counter-pressing, we can look at O’Riley’s involvement in the opposition half.

We already know O’Riley is pressing higher than any other central midfielder in the Premiership so far this season so it is no surprise to see he has the highest percentage of his counterpressures taking place there too, 81.5 per cent of his total counter-presses.

Given Celtic’s tendency to dominate territory and his advanced role, we might expect to see O’Riley perform well here of course. However, the volume, albeit early in the season, is still impressive.

Defensive actions

Finally, to round up O’Riley’s work off the ball in the opening fixtures, we can look at two defensive metrics.

As well as pressing efficiently, O’Riley’s general defending numbers so far are impressive too.

He has the third-highest possession-adjusted tackles and interceptions in this dataset (4.82 per 90). This is particularly impressive given the two players with the greater volume are both more disruptive, defensive-minded midfielders.

The number of times he has been dribbled past is decent too, below average in this dataset at less than once per game so far.

Conclusion  

Here, the data reflects the role O’Riley is tasked with in Celtic’s system out of possession, as well as highlighting just how effective he has been so far this season.

There are still a few areas where he could well make further gains in his work without the ball, perhaps in the number of regains from his pressing and counter-pressing, but it is worth highlighting again this is still a very small sample size.

It will certainly be worth revisiting these in another five or six games time to assess whether his output has been sustainable and also if those potential areas for gains do improve.

What is clear already is just how vital Matt O’Riley is to this Celtic team off the ball, as well as on it.