With the international break now over, it is time to turn our collective attention back to all things Celtic – especially in the Scottish Premiership.

While Brendan Rodgers’ side still have business to take care of in the Champions League, the club’s bread and butter is and will always be their league duties domestically. Currently, they find themselves in a unique position, as they sit nine points clear of their greatest rivals Rangers in the league table. Their nearest competitors this season are Aberdeen, who have matched Celtic’s league points total of 31 under new manager Jimmy Thelin – their only dropped points coming against the champions in Glasgow last month. 

Despite sitting level on points at the summit of the Scottish Premiership table, the stats tell us that only Celtic will be able to keep this pace going from now until the end of the league campaign. This is shown on HudlStatsBomb’s ‘Match Time’ metric, which focuses on xG for and against over 90 minutes of play.

 

Firstly, let’s focus on Celtic compared to their nearest challengers in Thelin’s high-flying Dons side. As the Match Time graph shows, Celtic are by far and away a better attacking force than their rivals up north. The red line signifies Celtic’s dominance in creating high-quality chances in the eyes of xG, as their figures steadily increase from kick-off to around the 60th minute. The reason for the drop-off after this point may be because the game is over as a contest by this point, which can result in a tempo drop from the players.

Celtic also posted the lowest xG against between the two Premiership league leaders, which remained low for the duration of games despite the slightest of rises up until just after half-time. In the case of Aberdeen, their xG for and against are intertwined alongside each other, which checks out as they do concede goals regularly alongside their goalscoring exploits at the other end. They seem to give away better opportunities just before and after half-time, though their chance creation displays the exact same behaviour concerning xG.

It is clear to see why both teams are doing well at the top of the league table, which is down to strong defences late on in matches. This is shown by the graphs decreasing in total as the game wears on – both teams are keeping things tight at the back by not giving good-quality chances away to the opposition.

 

By bringing Celtic’s Glasgow Derby rivals into the equation, you begin to see and fully understand why Rangers are so far behind already. Simply put, they cannot score at the same consistent level that Celtic can, while their defensive numbers are inferior to Rodgers’ team concerning xG.

Indeed, Rangers do stabilise defensively towards the end, though their stark drop in attacking numbers will be a cause for concern for Philippe Clement and his staff. Statistically, the gap between the two Glasgow sides so far this season has been massive, with little signs of improvement for the blue side. It may be Thelin’s Aberdeen side that Rodgers has to keep an eye on for the time being.

To conclude, while it is impressive to see that Aberdeen are keeping up with Celtic so far this season, the numbers tell us that this will be unsustainable for a full season when competing against Celtic. In the case of Rangers – who usually contribute to some form of a title race most years – things have to change quickly, or they may staring down the barrel of a third-place finish – at best!

Celtic are in a good place at the moment – let’s see if they can keep it up, starting this weekend against Hearts at Tynecastle.