Lotw Diary- Celtic Stats Show The Way

The Champions League adventure this week means that today’s Diary will be aboot that and I will not have a go at the torn, greeting faced, grumpy, old, sore loser Jim Jeffries a man who is that opposed to giving opposing teams credit that if coming up wie excuses why his team caused their own downfall was an Olympic sport then old mutton chops would have a gold medal to greet over.

Jim, Artur saved the chances and Colin Nish is sh*te. Get over it.

Anyway, a few weeks back, after Benfica had beaten us, oor manager bemoaned the fact that the press and fans, this blog included, slated oor defensive tactics. The manager claims that the deployment of Jiri Jarosik wasn’t defensive as he is an attacking player.

Since Jiri has returned to the team, wie measured success, he has hardly been a regular fixture charging into the box at the back post. His goalscoring record for the Hoops is nearing Neil Lennon proportions for a supposed attacking midfielder and as oor manager likes quoting stats a look at stats, available on the UEFA website, show that we are really not that much of an attacking side in the Champions League.

In oor group, the real group of death, we are the worst team in terms shots on goals on and off target. Our opponents tomorrow evening have an incredible 51 shots compared to oor 25. If this is broken down further to shots on target we have 10 while Donetsk and Milan have 22. Benfica have 21.

Taking this stat over the whole CL only Rosenburg and PSV have the same total while r*ngers, Porto, Steaua and strangely enough Inter Milan, whose shots on goal on and off stats resemble Celtic, they have 26 total, have less than 10.

Our goals scored stats are comparable to other teams who are struggling in the CL this season. Besiktas, Liverpool, Schalke, Valencia, Benfica, Lyon, PSV and Steaua have also scored 2 in their opening 3 games while Stuttgart have only found the net once.

On the other hand oor goals conceded stat stands up well against the rest of the CL and is reflective of the current trend in our group. Benfica have lost only 3 goals while us, Donetsk and Milan have all lost 4 each. 4 Other teams in the competition have lost 4 goals as well while 12 have lost more than 4.

Add to this the fact that in our group we have the least % possession during the games we have played, this can be factored as it reflects other teams who have played 2 away games % possession, means that our managers assumption that his tactics have been bold is off the mark. Fact is, the teams stats resembles other teams on the same level as Celtic, which is teams playing for 3rd in the group.

While GS tactics may not have been bold they are in keeping with the have nots of European football. In Lisboa, the use of the “wattienaccio” system was fine if you have the players to play this system well and also use set plays to your advantage. In Lisboa we done nether.

We have not played this system well or kept the ball for long enough periods for it to work. Even against Milan our two goals came from set plays and we hardly created from open play. For us to ensure we are still in Europe after Christmas our stats will have to improve. We will have to increase the shots at goals stats and also increase our ball time.

It’s a hard ask against a decent Benfica side, their stats show they like to attack and keep the ball, but a side we should beat at home. So maybe Gordon should be bold this time and Benfica can be Portuguese scalp number 8 at CP.

Forza