How slick Celtic left Livingston stricken and stunned in Almondvale assault

The Hoops had won just once in West Lothian since the Lions returned to the top flight in 2018 - now Ange Postecoglou's men have made it two in a row.

Goals from Kyogo Furuhashi, Greg Taylor and Jota sealed the deal while a missed penalty from Giorgos Giakoumakis was the only real blot on an otherwise impressive copybook.

Postecoglou made three changes to the team from the midweek Champions League draw with Shakhtar Donetsk.

Anthony Ralston, Aaron Mooy and James Forrest came in with Josip Juranovic, Liel Abada and Giakoumakis dropping out.

The latter pair made appearances from the bench - with Jota marking his return from a spell out with injury - while David Turnbull and Oliver Abildgaard also featured.

Here, The Celtic Way highlights some of the key StatsBomb data from the game to give you a match report experience like no other.

xG/trendline

While the match was about as one-sided as you can get, the first attempt actually went to Livingston.

Joel Nouble's ninth-minute effort was rated 0.16 xG - the Lions' best chance of the game - and accounted for over half of their cumulative xG total.

Thereafter it was an almost uninterrupted stream of Celtic chances at varying quality with notable jumps coming late in the game thanks to Giakoumakis's penalty and Jota's tap-in for the third goal.

Naturally, Giakoumakis spot-kick was the 'best' chance of the match at 0.78 xG. The Jota goal (0.61 xG) took the mantle for the best chance from open play.

StatsBomb records the final cumulative xG totals as 2.47-0.28 in Celtic's favour, suggesting the final scoreline was a fair reflection of the way the match played out in terms of chances created.

Additionally, our data provider estimates that such was the one-sided nature of the match the prospect of a Livi win was zero per cent.

Shots

Celtic had 17 attempts at goal - two more than they managed against Shakhtar in the Champions League in midweek. They had 12 inside the box and, of those, five came in close, central areas.

Three attempts were of mid-to-high-quality xG: Giakoumakis's penalty, Jota's goal and Kyogo's 22nd-minute miss.

The breakdown of the 17 efforts was as follows: six were on target, seven missed and four were blocked. Jack Hamilton made three saves. 

Thirteen of the 17 attempts were created from open play - including all three goals - with three efforts coming from corner kicks.

Livingston garnered four attempts with half of those coming in the Celtic area albeit only one could be termed close, central locations.

Two of their efforts were on target with the other two blocked and Hart making two saves. Only one of their shots was created from open play, with the other three coming from indirect free-kicks and throw-ins respectively.

Kyogo was the most prolific shooter during the match with three attempts. A quartet of Celts followed on two, with Giakoumakis's combined 0.88 xG notable although massively influenced by the penalty. No Livi player managed more than one effort.

Possession, passing & positions

The network gives a sense of where the game was played and who was most involved. The warmer the colour the more influential the player, while the thicker the passing lines the more passes between the players.

In StatsBomb's OBV network, Moritz Jenz and Taylor's contributions shine through. Those two were the top pair match-wide for OBV (a fuller breakdown of which can be found here) while passes between them was the most common passing combo in the match.

Additionally, Taylor topped the xGChain and took the most touches (258) of anyone in the game.

In terms of shape, Celtic's first half versus second half pass networks reflect a team pushing further into the opposition half as the game wore on rather than laying off. 

Taylor, Reo Hatate and Sead Haksabanovic's close proximity to one another dovetails well with the perception that much of Celtic's threat came down that flank.

Giakoumakis's position as a focal point is clear while Abildgaard's deep location almost formed a back three with Jenz and Cameron Carter-Vickers for the final 11 minutes or so that he was on the park.

Substitutes such as Turnbull and Jota made telling contributions as reinforced by their dark red nodes despite only playing 25 and 11 minutes respectively.

Livi's pass network demonstrates their preference to move to a back three/five for the match but also their lack of threat both in OBV and xGChain. 

Nouble provided something of a target but his average positioning was still reasonably deep and interestingly, considering the tussle with Carter-Vickers has been noted in several places, he was most often located in Jenz's area of the park.

Celtic both dominated possession and passed the ball well. They had 74 per cent of the play and completed 607 of 704 (86 per cent) of their pass attempts. Livi, by contrast, neither had much of the ball nor passed it particularly well when they did (139 of 242 for 57 per cent success).

Aaron Mooy led the way in key passes with three but it was Turnbull's pair that generated the most xG. The Scot also bagged himself a direct assist for Jota's late goal.

Liel Abada and Taylor, who also grabbed an assist, joined Turnbull on two. Six Celts registered at least one key pass while only two Livi players - Andrew Shinnie and Stephen Kelly - managed one.

Pressing and defending

Celtic accumulated 69 pressures to the visitors' 111 but only made one fewer pressure regain (12 v 13).

While the flanks saw by far the most intense action, when it came to counter-pressing Celtic were happy to do so across the final third.

Lions midfielder Jason Holt (20) had the most pressures and counter-pressures in the match while James Penrice, Scott Pittman, Nicky Devlin and Jackson Longridge all followed before the top Celts, Kyogo and Jenz (11).

Notably, Jenz was by far the top dog for total pressing duration match-wide despite having almost half the raw number of pressures as Holt.

Mooy (four) was the most persistent counter-pressing presence in both number of pressures and total counter-pressing duration.

The traditional defensive metrics were dominated by Livi players due to the nature of the match but Jenz (two tackles, one interception, a whopping nine clearances and six aerial wins) and Anthony Ralston (one tackle, five clearances and five aerial wins) stood out. 

Haksabanovic tallied a game-high five fouls while both sides possessed three players who were not dribbled past all afternoon.