Celtic were held to a draw at home in the Scottish Premiership for the first time this season on Saturday.

Motherwell striker Kevin van Veen’s 24th goal of the season cancelled out captain Callum McGregor’s first-half strike to earn the Lanarkshire side an unlikely point at Celtic Park.

Despite the draw, the Hoops still require just two wins from their five post-split fixtures to secure back-to-back titles.

Ange Postecoglou made one change to the side that blew Kilmarnock away in a whirlwind first half at Rugby Park last weekend with Cameron Carter-Vickers coming back into the side at the expense of Yuki Kobayashi.

Anthony Ralston returned too, taking his place amongst the substitutes, but Postecoglou was still without the considerable talents of Reo Hatate, Jota, Liel Abada and James Forrest.

Oh Hyeon-gyu and Aaron Mooy were the Celtic manager’s first changes of the match while youngster Rocco Vata was handed another chance to impress off the bench in the final 10 minutes. David Turnbull was also given the last few minutes as the Hoops went in search of a late winner.  

Here, The Celtic Way rounds up the best StatsBomb data from the game to give you a match report like no other...

xG/trendline

McGregor’s curling effort on six minutes was the Hoops’ first effort of the match with a further 10 minutes passing without the creation of any chances.

From Daizen Maeda’s headed attempt on 17 minutes though, which carried an xG of 0.11, Celtic created another four chances in the opening period. The ‘best’ chance of which was a sliding effort by Maeda from a teasing Sead Haksabanovic cross (0.22 xG).

McGregor’s goal, which came on 24 minutes, was from the joint-lowest quality chance for Celtic in the entire game. The effort was from furthest out in terms of distance and the shot carried an xG value of just 0.02 with the deflection off Dan Casey helping divert the ball into the bottom corner of visiting keeper Liam Kelly’s goal.

Despite Celts boss Postecoglou being more satisfied with the first half than the second, their highest-quality chances all came after the interval.

Kyogo’s one-on-one with Kelly (0.38 xG) on the hour mark was the first of these in the second half and statistically the ‘best’ chance of the whole match.

Carter-Vickers' back post header on 76 minutes, which was blocked, also carried a relatively high xG value (0.28) while Oh’s attempt to divert fellow substitute Vata’s excellent cross into the net in the final minutes was the ‘second-best’ chance in xG terms (0.30).

Van Veen’s had the visitors' first attempt in the opening seconds as they looked to catch Celtic cold. However, that effort only had an xG value of 0.01 and, following a low-quality chance for Callum Butcher (0.06 xG) a minute later, Stuart Kettlewell’s side were unable to create another chance until van Veen’s goal 10 minutes into the second half.

Paul McGinn’s headed effort two minutes later represented their only other ‘decent’ chance in the whole game (0.16 xG). In the final half-hour, they managed just two speculative attempts on goal, which carried a cumulative xG of only 0.09.

StatsBomb records the final cumulative xG totals as 1.91-0.58 in Celtic's favour, suggesting they created just about enough to merit a second goal.

That 1.91 xG is a little below the average per 90 so far in the league this season (2.17 xG). However, our data provider still suggests that they would have won the game 71 per cent of the time based on chances created.

Celtic had 16 attempts at goal – just over two less than their season average of 18.73 per 90.

Six of their 16 efforts on goal were headers while two were from through balls. Motherwell’s decent defensive display starts to show through here, blocking five of the 16 attempts.

Notably, the set-piece xG generated by Celtic (0.58) was above their average for the season in the league (0.38 xG).

Motherwell managed six shots at Parkhead, slightly higher than the average number of shots Celtic have conceded at home in the Scottish Premiership this season (5.71).  All of these, except McGinn’s header, came from the right side of their attack.

Five Celtic players registered two shots each, Kyogo and Maeda with the highest quality in terms of xG. McGregor, Haksabanovic and Carl Starfelt were the others who had two sights of goal.

Van Veen (three) was responsible for half of the visitor’s attempts.

Possession, passing & positions

As always, Celtic enjoyed the bulk of possession (76 per cent) and completed 715 of 835 pass attempts for an 86 per cent success rate. The Steelmen managed 144 successful passes from 260 attempts (55 per cent completion).

The network gives a sense of where the game was played and who was most involved. Remember that the warmer the colour the more influential the player and 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).

Canadian right-back Alistair Johnston stands out for the Hoops, clocking up the highest OBV (0.21) from 94 successful passes. By contrast on the opposite side, Greg Taylor had a rare ineffective display with an OBV of just 0.04 from 77 completed passes.

In the second half, substitute Vata continued his encouraging start to life as a first-team player with the second-highest OBV of the half. Despite only playing the final 10 minutes, the academy graduate registered an OBV of 0.23 from 11 passes, only bettered by Johnston in the second 45.

The second-half network also shows both full-backs inverting more in possession with Johnston much more effective on the ball in the second half than he was in the first half.

Motherwell’s passing network highlights they had most of their success down Celtic’s left, consistent with the shot map.

Despite registering a low OBV, right wing-back Max Johnston was able to get on the ball over the halfway line thanks to right centre-back McGinn’s higher position.

Kettlewell’s other two centre-backs are notable for their rigid positioning on the edge of the box, again highlighting their defensive discipline.

Matt O’Riley lead the way for key passes with six – four of which were from open play. Substitute Vata’s impact is again seen here with the 18-year-old producing two key passes which generated the second most xG from these types of passes of any Celtic player.

Mooy, Johnston and McGregor also contributed two key passes each.

Pressing and defending

Celtic asserted 113 pressures to the visitors' 208. However, Motherwell only managed to regain the ball four times more (28 to Celtic’s 24) for their almost double effort off-the-ball.

As is often the case, O’Riley topped the Hoops pressing charts with 25 followed by Haksabanovic with 19. Callum Slattery had a game-high 40 for the visitors.

The Danish under-21 international had the most counter-pressures too, with nine - a match-high - while Haksabanovic followed on six.

Haksabanovic also stood out in the traditional defensive metrics with the Montenegrin having the most tackles in green and white (five). However, he was also the Celtic player who was dispossessed the most (three).

Starfelt led the way in the air with a game-high 13 aerial wins (93 per cent of all his aerial duels), compared to van Veen’s two (40 per cent). Carter- Vickers’ also had 9 (82 per cent), highlighting the pair's dominance in the air against Motherwell’s Dutch forward.