Livingston manager David Martindale recently made some comments on his club’s television channel regarding the value for money his team has produced in recent years: so-called 'points per pound'.
Through the lens of the expected trophies model concept I laid out in my first-ever column for The Celtic Way, we can investigate to see if there is any validity in his point.
Using some of these tools and concepts, how have Livingston done relative to the rest of the league since the former’s ascension to the Premiership for the 2018-19 season? In turn, what might that tell us about Celtic?
First some context on the league wage bill structure that season:
The comparison of the distribution of wage bills within the 'big five' European Leagues that season showed that the bottom club, which happened to be Livingston, was comparable to the bottom two clubs in the French top flight.
In fact, those two clubs, Amiens and Nimes, were slightly more distant from Paris Saint-Germain than Livingston was to Celtic.
To place this into additional perspective, Celtic’s player wage bill was approximately 14 per cent that of PSG and Bayern Munich, to whom they had a cumulative goal difference of 17-1 in four Champions League games the prior season.
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Not only has Livingston’s gap been significant but the overall distribution within Scotland is extremely skewed. Celtic played approximately 58 per cent of league games against teams with seven per cent or lower relative wage bills, which was far higher than the other leagues listed.
It was not until the 2019-20 season when Rangers reached a wage bill that was above 70 per cent of Celtic’s. That gap has continued to close to above 90 per cent subsequently.
However, this huge skew in the wage bill structure of the league can also work to the benefit of those towards the bottom, as the disparities are not dramatic with the clubs outside of Celtic and Rangers.
Even with Aberdeen and Hearts typically in the third and fourth slots in the league, a club like Livingston operates at around a third of their resources and within relatively close range of clubs like Motherwell, St Johnstone and St. Mirren.
This second graphic displayed a variety of performance metrics for all Premiership clubs and games since the start of the 2018-19 season. The last column was a rescaled calculation made of each club’s goal difference relative to Celtic’s over the period.
Compared to the wage bill structure of the league, we can see the underperformance of the 'middle-class' clubs such as Aberdeen, Hearts and Hibs, with the remainder of the clubs picking up share.
Notably, Livingston have significantly outperformed their financial standing, with the sixth-best goal difference and non-penalty xG difference. It includes goals and xG differences from set-plays as well, which is a phase of play in which Livingston have really picked up relative performance, ranking third in xG difference from set-plays after Rangers and Celtic.
Given the closeness in financial resources of so much of the league, normal variance and luck play a huge role season to season as to the final table, and which of the bottom seven teams make it into top six for the post-split games.
It was Kilmarnock in 2018-19; Livingston and St Johnstone were in position when the season was ended in 2019-20; were there again in 2020-21; it was Dundee United, Motherwell and Ross County last season. Livingston finished last season seventh but four points clear of eighth and with total points above the other three.
Given the disparity in resources, comparing Livingston to Celtic directly is kind of like comparing the current iterations of Celtic and Manchester City - apples and oranges. The strata of players, talent and infrastructure are just so vastly different.
Having said that, within the strata of domestic apples-to-apples, Livingston have done extremely well since 2018-19 and in a relatively consistent fashion.
While not an ideal analogy, a comparable stretch by Celtic in the Champions League, would be reaching the knockout stage three out of four seasons, with a decent Europa League run in the fourth.
Most fans would probably be content with the Parkhead boss doing a little bragging when and if that occurs.
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