How patient Celtic overcame Aberdeen's anti-football approach

The Celtic captain, after a two-month lay-off with a knee injury, fired in a late winner to restore the Hoops’ nine-point lead at the top of the Scottish Premiership.

McGregor’s decisive strike, Celtic’s 33rd attempt on goal at Pittodrie, finally broke down the host’s deep defensive block to make it 15 league wins out of 16.

The home side’s approach, which saw them manage just two efforts at goal themselves all game, frustrated Celtic at times but with McGregor orchestrating from the middle on his return, the visitors eventually found a way through, thanks to the skipper’s low drive past Kelle Roos in the 87th minute.

Here, The Celtic Way highlights key StatsBomb data from the match in the Granite City to give you a match report experience like no other...

xG/trendline

Celtic created consistently throughout the match on Saturday with Reo Hatate getting the first effort away after 10 minutes.

There were a few speculative efforts afterwards, including Jota’s fierce drive that stung the palms of Roos just before the 15th minute mark.

Hatate’s instinctive left-footed strike from inside the box was Celtic’s ‘best’ chance of the first half (0.15 xG). Coming on 20 minutes, it was followed by seven further efforts before the break, all of which were relatively low-value in terms of xG.

Kyogo passed up Celtic’s ‘best’ chance of the game early in the second half, side-footing substitute Liel Abada’s low cross past the post (0.44 xG).

Giorgos Giakoumakis had a half-decent chance late on to break the deadlock following his introduction, heading over from a Matt O’Riley cross with just five minutes left (0.19 xG).

McGregor’s eventual winner, Celtic’s 33rd and final attempt at the Dons’ goal, carried an initial xG of just 0.05.

The crucial strike had a post-shot xG of 0.52 though, highlighting the accuracy of the Scotland international’s fierce angled shot from just outside the box.

Jim Goodwin’s extreme approach, sitting off and allowing Celtic to completely dominate the ball, resulted in a cumulative xG of just 0.07, the lowest amount any league opponent has managed against Ange Postecoglou’s side this season.

StatsBomb gave Aberdeen a zero per cent chance of winning with even the chance of a draw just nine per cent. Based on chances created by both teams, Celtic were 91 per cent likely to emerge victorious.

Shots

As mentioned, Celtic had a total of 33 shots in their first match back following the World Cup break, which is their most in a league game so far this season, even beating their tally in the 9-0 win at Tannadice in August (30).

Nine of those attempts on Saturday were on target with Celtic forced into taking on a high number of shots from longer distances when struggling to break down Aberdeen’s low block.

There were still a few decent-quality chances created in the box, including the one for Kyogo early in the second half, but despite those 33 shots, Celtic’s overall xG (2.31) was slightly below their league average this season (2.46).

Aberdeen’s shot map is unsurprisingly, somewhat sparse. Their total xG of 0.07 was made up by Leighton Clarkson’s first-half free-kick which sailed over Joe Hart’s crossbar with their only effort in open play coming in the 92nd minute when Ross McCrorie shot over from range.

Individually for Celtic, McGregor, Hatate and Greg Taylor all had five shots each with O’Riley taking on four.

Kyogo had the highest xG from his three efforts on goal, mostly made up from that high-value chance in the opening minutes of the second half.

Possession, passing & positions

The pass 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.

StatsBomb measures pass contributions in on-ball value (often referred to as OBV, a term breakdown can be read here).

For Celtic, their passing network shape resembles something of a 2-3-4-1, with full-backs Taylor and Anthony Ralston in almost central midfielder areas on either side of McGregor.

The network also highlights just how congested things were in front of Aberdeen’s block with the four ahead of McGregor, Taylor and Ralston (the two advanced central midfielders and two wingers) almost on top of them.

Although McGregor completed the most passes in the match (170!), it was Ralston who had the highest OBV from his 104 successful passes (0.60). McGregor did have the second-highest OBV of 0.35 while Taylor was third with an OBV of 0.22 from 97 passes. 

Given they had just 21 per cent possession, it is no surprise to see Aberdeen’s network ice cold and disparate.

The home side only had three passing combinations between two players of four or more passes and only four home players registered a positive OBV, one of those being the goalkeeper Roos.

Astonishingly, or perhaps not given the number of passes he completed during the match, McGregor produced a total of six key passes while O’Riley also had five.

Abada’s impact off the bench at half-time is highlighted here, producing the highest total xG value from his three key passes.

Pressing and defending

Despite having 79 per cent of the ball, Celtic still had 113 pressures with Aberdeen’s tactic of standing off showing through in the fact they only managed a few more (121).

Celtic also managed more pressure regains than their opponents, 27 to Aberdeen’s 13.

Aberdeen’s low block is again evident in their pressure frequency heatmap which shows all their pressing actions occurring on the edge of their own box.

Individually, O’Riley had the most pressures in the game for Celtic (21) while, despite only playing the first 45 minutes, Daizen Maeda had the second-highest (15). Both players also topped the counter-pressing charts for Postecoglou’s side, O’Riley with nine and Maeda with four.

The traditional defensive metrics show how comfortable Celtic were at the back, particularly in the air, with Cameron Carter-Vickers and Carl Starfelt winning 92 per cent of their aerial duels.

Aberdeen’s front two of Duk and Bojan Miovski only managed 19 per cent and 18 per cent respectively.

Starfelt had the highest number of combined tackles and interceptions in the match (six), again highlighting just how much Aberdeen stood off the Hoops.