We have to talk about Liel Abada amid Celtic transfer reports

An eye-catching fee both for Celtic, and for a 19-year-old, of £3.4million secured his services from Maccabi Petah Tikvah early in the new manager’s reign.

Such was the bin-fire the Australian inherited, the inexperienced attacker was thrown straight into the first team as a patchwork side attempted to secure group-stage European football. He scored on his debut at home to FC Midtjylland and then again away to FK Jablonec.

All told in the 2021-22 season he appeared in 53 matches, covering 3,350 minutes although he only completed 90 minutes 15 times. Only five players completed more minutes.

That was sufficient to yield 15 goals and 13 assists. His 28 goal contributions were joint highest in the squad with Jota.

After accruing five substitute appearances for his country in 2021, Abada made four starts in the Nations League for Israel in the summer of 2022, registering his first goal and assist.

At the start of the current season, then, there was much expectation the youngster could push on from such a promising beginning to life in Scotland.

So far, with Celtic pushing for a domestic treble, he has only started 17 matches and completed 90 minutes twice. Abada has not featured for his international side since September 2022.

Yet he has appeared in 41 of 42 matches – the joint most appearances with Matt O’Riley. That has been sufficient time for his to score 12 goals and register nine assists. He sits behind Kyogo Furuhashi in goal contributions with 21, the same as Jota once more.

Now there are reports he has been offered but refused an extended contract. Under contract until 2026, time is on both his and the club’s side. However, as we have learned from the experiences of Josip Juranovic and Giorgos Giakoumakis, you are either all in or all out with Postecoglou.

How impactful would losing Abada be? Has he stagnated at Celtic, or improved? Let’s take a look…

StatsBomb

The data from StatsBomb covers only the Scottish Premiership.

There is a remarkable consistency to the data across the two seasons.

On the plus side, Abada has more touches in the opposition box, improvements to both expected goals (xG) and expected assists (xA) and has slightly improved his xG per shot from 0.16 to 0.17.

His cross success has dropped, he has significantly less successful dribbles, is turning the ball over more and regaining the ball through pressing less often.

Taken in the round, it seems he is honing his already special shooting skills to even greater heights and getting into the opposing danger zone more often. He is dribbling less often and his defensive work is not as prevalent.

All this suggests he is being asked to focus on what he is good at and not worry too much about what he isn’t. Which would be typical Postecoglou common sense and pragmatism, albeit not a compelling case for overall improvement.

Let’s dive a little deeper with data that covers all competitions.

Goal threat

Abada’s main strengths are as a support striker. His special skill is being able to time runs into the box, into central positions and then finish off either foot. His future may well be as a striker.

He had an impactful appearance last season as an injury hit Celtic won at St Johnstone on Boxing Day and Abada scored two as a centre forward.

Here, we will compare the major goal threat metrics across the two seasons, with the difference highlighted as a per centage (green = improved; amber = the same; red = regressed).

Well, this is compelling. We all love a sea of green.

Abada has improved his goal threat across a whole range of goal threat indicators. And not slightly, by around 30 per cent across the board.

He is taking more shots (3.66 to 2.77) and more of them from inside the box.

Abada’s goals scored continues to trend under his xG. But both are rising – xG is up 44 per cent from 0.46 to 0.67 per 90 minutes.

Shot quality is therefore improving – take more shots from inside the box and that will happen – up from 0.17 to 0.18.

Indicative of movement but also team style, he is getting more big chances (a chance where you think ‘he should score’) and unsurprisingly many more touches inside the opposition penalty area.

Finally, there is a large uplift in pack receive score. This is a proxy for movement off the ball, getting into positions to receive forward passes that take out opponents, touch and control. Again, this is influenced by team style – Celtic are in general playing more aggressive forward passes.

All this suggests Abada is developing significantly and in line with team style development.

Some of the improvement in numbers you see above will be due to Abada’s personal development and some due to the impact of the team being more coherent about its attacking patterns.

Also, the forward players are being encouraged to flood the box and be more aggressive in their attacking positioning. It is one thing having a plan, of course, and another to find players able to implement it.

Chance creation

The main criticisms of Abada have tended to be regarding his build up play as a wide forward.

He rarely is able to beat a defender for skill or pace, despite appearing fleeter of foot than Jota. He also can make poor decisions when faced with a crossing situation. Often, he can take the wrong option or just look a bit clumsy (see when he fell over his feet in the last game against Hibernian).

Those are perceptions, so what does the data say?

Oh (not the South Korean striker). Abada is similarly smashing improvement in chance creation.

Only in volume of failed crosses is he stagnant but, given he is completing more crosses, his overall success rate has improved from 11 per cent to 16 per cent (have I ever told you crosses are quite inefficient?).

Abada is creating more chances and of better quality – xA per 90 minutes up from 0.39 to 0.49. More passes are also hitting the danger zone – up from 1.07 to 1.56.

But it is in establishing the play that there is more notable improvement. Pack passes are those that are forward and take opponents out the game. His packing score is up 51 per cent.

And, despite reservations about his dribbling ability, Abada is completing 44 per cent more ball carries. Indeed, his total involvement as measured by simple completed passes is up 21 per cent.

Overall, his chance creation data shows, on average, between 30 and 40 per cent improvement. See a trend yet?

Attack summary

Putting all this together into the aggregated attacking threat metrics, we get:

Both his scoring contribution (goals + assists) and expected scoring contributions (xG + xA) per 90 minutes are up significantly to well over one. He is achieving over one goal or assist per 90 minutes, even though he is starting few games.

The overall CAT (Celtic attacking threat) score is a volume indicator of overall attacking actions. Anything over 10 is very high and he is averaging 11.48 this season.

Final third losses (the number of times he is losing the ball in the opposition final third without creating a chance, having a shot or otherwise retaining possession) is also up significantly.

This ‘negative’ can be seen as a positive if your instructions are to try to be more aggressive in the final third and cause more mayhem – i.e. take more risks. Which is what you want when faced with a 5-4-1 low block most weeks.

Defending

To round out the analysis, a few attacking metrics including the highly aggregated defensive action success rate and possessions won from defensive actions.

We have some red. But, again, context.

Abada’s defensive actions will include all duels, interceptions and other ‘defensive’ actions but they could happen anywhere on the pitch. As an attacker, that will mean he is being challenged more. More dribbles and take-ons, more driving at the opposition, more crosses attempted and simply getting on the ball more will all result in more duels.

He is involved in 15 per cent more possession events in total.  It comes back to understanding individual contribution versus team style, cohesion and instruction.

Abada, like we’d find with other attackers, is probably being asked to be more aggressive in his attacking; to get in the box more, to drive more with the ball, to attempt more crosses. All this makes sense as an antidote to the defensive football Celtic face most weekends in the SPFL.

This will mean more duels lost, more crosses failed and more unsuccessful dribbles. But as we have seen above, it can also mean more great outcomes if you have the players able to adapt and learn and improve.

Celtic appear to have such a player in Abada. Even the increase in fouls committed will not be seen as a negative at a club where winning the ball back early and high up the pitch is mission critical.

Team style considerations come out most markedly in the ‘packed’ stat. What this means is the number of times Abada is taken out the game by an opposition forward pass. This has increased by 86 per cent.

There are two drivers for that. Champions League opposition will have resulted in this rising somewhat for the four matches Abada played given the quality of those teams.

But more impactful is, again, team orders. Celtic are being packed more than last season in general. Postecoglou has undertaken some kind of risk assessment and concluded having forwards and midfielders (and full-backs) flooding the box generates much more reward than the risk of being countered. SPFL teams need to successfully advance 80 yards to counter the Hoops in most matches.

Therefore, across the board, Celtic players are being packed more often but we can all see the attacking style is breaking even the deepest of low blocks.

Summary

Often these ‘improved or not?’ pieces there is a preconception before starting. What is most enjoyable is when that is blown away by the findings.

My preconceived bias was that Abada would have improved very little with a mix of positive and negative across the board. Indeed, StatsBomb would support that.

But once we dig a bit into the more granular data we see an extraordinarily consistent improvement in output – on average between 30 and 40 per cent in most metrics.

Abada is 21 and these are his development years. Not many players will improve that dramatically.

What must be cautioned is that a portion of this improvement will be due to him playing in a team that is displaying remarkable levels of consistency and attacking cohesion. Celtic’s attacking output as a team is very predictable now –and high. Abada is benefiting from that, as are the other players.

However, individually, he is more than keeping his end up. Of course, irrespective of the value of the player or his contributions, the manager’s view is that if you want to be elsewhere then you must go. And that is absolutely final.