WE RECENTLY covered how the Celtic team performed when benchmarked against their Europa league competition with plenty of interesting data on how Ange Postecoglou’s side stacked up against top opposition.
Overall, Celtic are exciting in attack and also concede often... but how do the individual players rank against their peers from teams of a similar level?
Although the Europa league is only four games in and the sample size is small, we have dug a little deeper using metrics from WyScout to help indicate the high performers so far this season for Celtic.
Jota
Unsurprisingly the first player to get a mention is Jota.
The Portuguese maestro has lit up Celtic Park since his arrival with his stunning array of tricks and skills. He has been key to the side's recent form in Scotland and has carried this high-performance level to the continent and displayed it against top sides.
In Europe, Jota has already amassed a goal and two assists (on 1.1xG and 0.43xA) which is a strong return for a player who only recently joined having to learn a new system.
He has been a constant threat in these big European games always trying to get on the ball and generate opportunities and this shows up heavily when compared to his peers.
He is only second to Adnan Januzaj of La Liga leaders Real Sociedad in 1v1 dribbles, attempting 38 so far across 355 minutes of game-time. This equates to around an attempt every nine minutes and in three out of the four matches he has achieved 10 or more.
With all this direct attacking play he also ranks first in key passes with six already completed and is also fourth overall in the number of crosses attempted.
With only a few European games under his belt, we can expect Jota to only improve as he becomes more accustomed to Postecoglou’s system and his team-mates.
Kyogo Furuhashi
Kyogo has been Celtic’s top performer in Europe so far.
The Hoops can perhaps count themselves unlucky he was unavailable for the Real Betis game that was lost as it’s clear Kyogo could have made a huge difference.
READ MORE: How Celtic suffocate by playing the game and not the occasion
In just 231 minutes of game-time, he has two goals and an assist on 1.85xG and 0.6xA. However, to see just how effective he has been we need to compare him to others in the competition.
Kyogo in the group stages has amassed 0.7xG p90 which puts him 12th overall, combine that with creativity (xA) and it goes up to 0.96xG+xA which brings him up to seventh in overall expected attacking output.
Cameron Carter-Vickers
Perhaps an unexpected mention considering Celtic currently hold the title for most goals conceded.
Ever since signing, Carter-Vickers has been a constant feature of the manager’s side and has provided a good combination of both physicality and mobility.
Despite being on the smaller side as a centre-back at just 6ft, Carter-Vickers has been dominant in the air in Europe.
Across the competition, he has the third-highest aerial duel success rate at 77.3 per cent. This combined with his eight aerial duel wins in the box (third-most in the competition) shows just how crucial he is for Celtic when defending the penalty area.
His performance against Bayer Leverkusen was particularly impressive despite the 0-4 score as he completed 11 of 13 (85 per cent) of his total duels and three out of three of his aerial duels.
Conclusion
Celtic as a team and many of the players have performed admirably so far in Europe considering the upheaval that took place over the summer.
Player performances have only been getting better and, should they drop into the Conference League, each and every one of Postecoglou’s side should be targeting European silverware come the end of the season.
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