Why Celtic's captain McGregor was back to his best vs Hearts

Celtic Park was in fine voice for this game, as an expectant crowd came in their thousands to roar the players onto victory. Kyogo headed home within four minutes to open the scoring, before doubling his goal tally just 20 minutes into proceedings. Matt O’Riley – a standout all throughout the match – converted a late spot-kick, as Steven Naismith’s side had no reply to Celtic’s advances as they cruised to a comfortable win at Parkhead.

Using StatsBomb data, metrics and analytics, The Celtic Way brings you a match report unlike any other…

Race chart + key stats

Though Celtic’s Edinburgh opponents put up a good fight, the home side dominated proceedings on the day, with that dominance showing in the scoreline and in the match stats. With 60 per cent of possession and over 500 passes attempted, Rodgers’ team had a firm grip on this game for the vast majority of the contest. 17 shots – with eight on target – indicated a strong attacking performance, with the visitors only managing five of their own, two of them troubling Joe Hart.

The race chart above – which rises with the values of xG generated during the game – painted a picture of domination from the home side, which continued to rise as the minutes went by. The line at the end going much higher is an example of how data sees penalty kicks as high-xG chances, with O’Riley only having the keeper to beat from 12 yards. Yutaro Oda had the biggest chance for the visitors, though his strike was straight at Hart, who managed to chest the shot to relative safety.

Statistically - with the chances that both sides had – StatsBomb gave Celtic a massive 85 per cent chance of winning this football match. A draw was the next most likely result at 11 per cent, whilst Hearts were calculated at only having a four per cent chance of victory, given the chances they created.

Team line-ups, positions and passing

Rodgers continued to line up his side in the usual 4-3-3 formation, as has been the case for the vast majority of this season. Hart remained in goals for this game, whilst it was an unchanged backline of Greg Taylor, Liam Scales, Cameron Carter-Vickers and Alistair Johnston. Callum McGregor continued to recover from his recent injury very publicly in the engine room of midfield and was joined by both Reo Hatate and O’Riley. James Forrest and Nicolas Kuhn provided width on the left and right wing respectively, with Kyogo leading the line as usual up front.

Observing Celtic’s positions using the passing network diagram, it is clear that the home side were on the front foot for the vast majority of this match. With only Scales, Carter-Vickers and Hart present in their own half, it left Celtic with eight players on the attack for most of this game, including both full-backs.

In a bit of a switch-up from recent weeks, a lot of Celtic’s successes came down the left side, as Taylor and Hatate both had good games in the eyes of OBV. O’Riley – positioned as a second-striker according to this diagram – had a good game on the ball, as did Kuhn on the right. The warmer the shade of colour, the better the OBV, which meant all of the players mentioned succeeded in being effective with the ball at their feet.

Statistically, O’Riley had the best OBV value out of all of his teammates. 32 passes generated 0.75, by far the highest total between the two sides. Hatate managed 0.19, whilst Taylor had 0.18, as well as Kuhn’s 0.17. This will not be the last time we talk about Celtic’s Denmark international, either…

Speaking of the devil, O’Riley was instrumental in everything positive for Celtic on the day. Indeed, the attacking midfielder had four key passes, generating 0.58 in combined xG. Forrest and Hatate contributed two of their own, whilst substitute Adam Idah and Johnstone had one each.

Shooting

Celtic’s shot map this week is again a positive picture to view and discuss. Only three of their 16 total shots happened outside of the box, with the home side keen on working the ball into the danger area before striking. Funnily enough, Celtic’s second and third goals occurred in near-enough the same area of the pitch, though one was in open play and the other being O’Riley’s penalty. Zander Clark had no chance with either of them.

For top shooters on the day, Kyogo was far more involved in proceedings with six in total, his two goals not flattering him whatsoever. O’Riley had four shots, whilst Hatate had three. Forrest had two to his name, on an afternoon where Celtic could have had a lot more conversions than the three they managed.

Kyogo was the main man in an attacking sense for Celtic on Saturday, with his two goals setting the tone in the game early on. His first came from the second phase of a corner kick when Hatate floated the ball into the path of his fellow countryman, who headed it past Clark in the Hearts goal. 0.34 in xG rose to 0.67 in PSxG, indicating how accurate and pinpoint the deadly striker’s connection with the ball was.

His second of the afternoon was just as good, yet most of the praise will no doubt go to his assister in O’Riley, whose delivery into the box may well be the ‘assist of the season’ from Celtic’s best outfield player this campaign. Kyogo’s finish was a difficult one, as shown in his original xG of 0.17. However, this total rose to 0.68 in PSxG, again showing his composure and shot-selection qualities under pressure in front of the goal.

Pressing and defending

As is normally the case due to Celtic’s dominant possession stats, Hearts had more pressures and pressure regains with 205 to 165, though they only had six more of the latter at a rate of 31 to 37.

Celtic’s captain was in the wars on Saturday afternoon, completing 26 pressures, with his midfield partner managing 23 of his own. Kyogo and Kuhn had 20 and 19 respectively. In counterpressures, Hatate had five to his name, whilst his skipper McGregor had four, in what was an impressive off-the-ball showing from Celtic’s engine room trio.

McGregor’s return to his best was confirmed in his defensive statistics, as the Scotland stalwart had a combined eight tackles and interceptions. Taylor had six in this category, whilst Forrest and Carter-Vickers had four each. The latter also had five total clearances and four aerial duels; a feat shared by Scales on the day in this metric.