Analysis Corner: What's happened to Celtic's scoring?
By Dougie Wright (@dougie_wright)
On Sunday, Celtic’s 0-0 draw with St Johnstone meant that for the first time in 9 years and over 300 games, the champions had failed to score in two consecutive Scottish Premiership matches.
Looking at a year on year graph, you can see that Rodgers’ side had scored 19 more goals after the same number of games last season:
While the Celtic defence has remained almost as solid, it still merits discussion as to why the goal scoring has fallen off slightly, whether this is a serious problem, and how Rodgers may look to change things going forwards.
First of all, let’s put this in context:
Some fans have complained that the expectation levels were set too highly after last year’s ‘Invincible’ season. Looking at Celtic’s scoring for the past decade, they certainly have a point, with 2016/17’s 73 goals after 27 games their highest haul over this timeframe.
However, only in the 2009/10 season under Tony Mowbray did Celtic score fewer than they have this campaign.
So what could be going on here?
Injuries are a fairly obvious place to start. Looking at Celtic’s major attacking threats from last season, Dembélé, Roberts, Rogic, Griffiths and Armstrong have all missed at least five games this season to injury already.
There’s no doubt that James Forrest is enjoying the best season of his Celtic career; likewise for Callum McGregor. Odsonne Edouard has hardly disappointed either. However, injuries to the above quintet mean that Celtic’s attack has never really had a chance to gel in competitive games.
Furthermore, it means that Rodgers is a bit more limited in how he can change matches. For example, James Forrest and Patrick Roberts are two totally different types of winger. Where Forrest will usually look to cross from the byline, Roberts will prefer to cut inside and drive at defenders. The latter’s injury means that Rodgers has perhaps had to lean on the former too heavily at times. You could make similar arguments for most of Celtic’s injured players.
Rogic and Armstrong have a great shooting range from the edge of the area, while that’s not exactly in McGregor’s skillset.
While Dembélé can bully defenders, Griffiths will sit on their shoulder like a hawk. Edouard doesn’t really specialise in either.
When you get these injuries, you lose fluency and you become more limited in your tactical options.
Therefore, while Celtic were poor with a “rotated” side against St Johnstone, their “first” team has also disappointed in recent games against Rangers, Hearts and Hibs. They’ve simply had no time to learn the nuances of each other’s game needed to play the type of one touch, combination football that served them so well last season.
Ultimately Celtic’s rate of 2 goals a game is only poor by their own standards. Over the past decade, only Smith’s Rangers have scored at a higher rate than that. The injuries argument certainly makes sense, but that’s not to say Rodgers doesn’t have work to do.
Dembélé is probably at the peak of his value, Sinclair turns 30 next year, Roberts goes back to Man City in the summer and Armstrong is once again heading into the last 12 months of his contract.
These temporary absences may soon turn permanent. How Rodgers manages this will be crucial to Celtic’s future fortunes.
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