Analysis Corner: Spotting talent in the Scottish Premiership
Last updated 28th Mar 2017
By Dougie Wright (@dougie_analysis)
Under the radar: talent spotting in the Scottish Premiership
The Scottish Premiership is frequently derided for its perceived lack of quality. Early European exits against Maltese/Armenian/Slovenian minnows (delete as appropriate) have seen most of the top clubs look elsewhere in search of talent. However, even aside from Celtic’s Southampton exports, it’s not an altogether rare event to see a player leave Scotland and enjoy success down South.
Former Aberdeen kid Ryan Fraser had a hand in three of Bournemouth’s four goals against Liverpool at the weekend, and he’s far from the only one to succeed in the English top tier. Indeed, of the twenty English Premier League clubs, fifteen have a player in their first squad who played in the Scottish top flight.
So the talent is clearly there, it’s just about spotting it. Using stats, I thought I would highlight a few of the less obvious players in the Scottish Premiership who may be able to play at a higher level.
1) Ali Crawford
Formed in 1874, Hamilton Accies are one of the oldest teams in Scotland. In over 140 years of history, only seven players have pulled on the Accies shirt more times than Ali Crawford. By the end of the season, he’ll have overtaken old boss Alex Neill and jumped into the top five. And he’s only twenty-five years of age.
Only a few months younger than James McCarthy, Ali Crawford has now been a regular for Hamilton Accies for the past five seasons. However, the main criticism of his game has been his goals (or lack of). Prior to this season, the attacking midfielder had only nine goals in over one hundred top flight appearances. He had always been an important player for Accies, but he had struggled to convert his undoubted talent into end product.
This season, something’s clicked. With six goals and two assists to his name already, he’s dragging this Accies side away from the foot of the table. Without his goals, they’d be two points adrift at the bottom.
At 25 years old, the best is yet to come from Ali Crawford. How much longer can Hamilton keep him?
2) Scott Bain
First, let’s admit that Dundee haven’t been great this season. With just four wins from sixteen, Paul Hartley’s side risk being dragged into a tightly contested relegation battle.
It’s therefore a good thing they have Scott Bain between the sticks.
Dundee have conceded twenty-two goals this season, which is fairly average when looking at the league as a whole. However, they’d have conceded a lot more without Scott Bain.
Expected goals is a measure used to rate the quality and quantity of chances that a team creates or concedes. It is a far better predictor of success or form that any previous measure (goals, possession, shots on target), and is used by clubs such as Arsenal, Bayern Munich and PSG for scouting and analysis purposes.
Matt Rhein and his Backpass Rule website collect expected goals statistics for the Scottish Premiership. According to expected goals, Dundee ought to have conceded around six more goals this season than they have already. How many of their four wins could have been draws? How many of their three draws could have been losses?
There’s an argument that this could be dumb luck, and that they’ll start conceding more goals pretty soon. However, it’s impossible to watch Dundee this season and not think that Scott Bain doesn’t have something to do with it.
3) Callum Paterson
This is a bit of a cheat entry as far as “under rated” goes, but it’s worth pointing out how great a season Callum Paterson is having at Hearts. Out of contract in June, the 22-year-old has been linked with moves to Wigan, Watford and Derby. A few glances at the stats will tell you why.
As a right back, Paterson’s primary responsibility is to assist his team from conceding goals. Only Aberdeen and Celtic concede fewer shots and fewer shots on target than Hearts. Therefore, the first area to praise Paterson is as a part of what has generally been a fairly solid Hearts defence.
However, the really interesting part is watching him going forward. With six goals to his name already, he is joint with Jamie Walker as Hearts’ leading scorer this season, and is the highest scoring defender in the league by some distance. This isn’t just a fluke either.
Paterson has taken more shots than any other player in Scotland this season. Forty-four in total. That’s nearly three shots a game. Any striker would be proud of that tally. Coming from right back, those numbers are nothing short of outrageous.
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