Thread by @jucojames

Time for the good, the bad, & the ugly from yesterday's Celtic at St Johnstone game. Had a long morning of driving today so a bit late posting. Non-penalty xG was 1.94 vs 0.34 on 10 vs 5 shots. That differential of 1.60 was very close to the avg I shared ahead of the game- 1.51

So I would characterize the overall output as fine. Similar to the St Mirren game, the dispersion of performance levels in the game was skewed late, as had 0.94 xG before Edouard's 1st goal, with 0.40 of that coming on the Duffy chance off the Turnbull free kick delivery.

Celtic also won just 42.32% of duels overall- poorly placed/sloppy passing was widespread. Christie offered 2 moments of excellence which enabled the same from Edouard- other than Edouard's 1st half cross, that was pretty much the entirety of Celtic's attack.

First good goes to Brown- his 3rd in 4 games. His defensive output since returning to be the bottom of the diamond has been very good, both in volume & efficiency. This has resulted in a recovery in his decline curve I've shared in the past- total successful def actions.

As I referenced heading into the season, the 4-2-3-1 really exposed Brown's weaknesses and he's been much better with the relatively narrow midfield 3 ahead of him. Ball progressions and creativity remain a big weakness and his output is still way down from his 18-19 peak,

but the diamond has suited him far better, IMO.

Other good and my MOTM goes to Edouard. He had an even 1 xG and 0.25 xA on the key pass/cross which resulted in Rogic's one big chance. Similar to when he hasn't played with a natural strike partner in the past, his involvement

was below average. For example, he received 16 passes vs a season avg of 20.07 in league games. He did a lot with his touches- including accurate on 4 of 5 passes to the box, 6 of 8 forward passes, and having 5 touches in the box, which was in line with his season average.

Bad goes to the reversion to Brown over Soro. We will probably be having a folsom discussion on this topic for this week's @huddlebreakdown episode we'll record Thursday, but analytics is not as simple as looking at and comparing a couple of numbers. I'll share more specifics

then, but just one small example has been Brown, despite his obvious and natural decline in quickness, pressing as aggressively in the opponent's half as the 22 year old Soro. The impact of this positional issue has had ripple effects, with McGregor's output the most obvious

measurable, but there are others. These have been mitigated to a degree by crowding the midfield, IMO, but not eliminated.

Ugly goes to today's lighter fluid thrown onto the "fire" between many supporters and the club's leadership. As I mentioned after the Jan 2nd loss,

I've reallocated more of my time towards analyzing things within the context of long term strategic questions facing the club. I think the first necessary step to look forward is to establish a reasonable analysis of the past, which I will probably start sharing tomorrow.

A brief intro- I believe the people running Celtic have sold a narrative which is hard to defend when put under scrutiny. The CEO's tenure has not been what they appear to want supporters to believe and probably even believe themselves, IMO. End.