It’s been a season of frustration for Celtic, and in no area have they left more to be desired than in their finishing.
Under Brendan Rodgers, Wilfried Nancy and Martin O’Neill, the team have been guilty of throwing away points by being wasteful in front of goal.
The team made hard work of it in Sunday’s 2-1 win over Dundee, but were ultimately saved by Kelechi Iheanacho’s vital late winner.
And this has been a trend this season, as is clear when looking at the numbers.
Is this the worst group of finishers you’ve seen in a Celtic squad?
Celtic have missed 27 more big chances than Hearts this season
Celtic have missed 77 chances in 32 league games this season, an average of 2.4 per game.
That’s 27 more than Hearts’ current total of 50. A truly staggering difference.
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Rangers – who’ve had a turbulent season of their own – aren’t far behind Celtic, but also currently have the most goals in the division with 60.
The numbers are especially bad for the league’s top scorer from last season: Daizen Maeda. With 22, he has missed more big chances than any other player in the league.
He ranks a massive seven misses above Youssef Chermiti in second. Also among the Hoops’ worst culprits are Hyunjun Yang and Johnny Kenny, both with ten.
It’s almost impressive that Kenny has managed this total in just 668 minutes of football. This means that, prior to moving on loan to Bolton in January, he averaged a missed big chance every 68 minutes.
For comparison, Maeda has averaged one every 104 minutes. Looking purely at Nancy’s tenure, Kenny missed five big chances in six games, scoring no goals.
This isn’t a defence of Nancy, but when player finishing is that poor, you have to at least acknowledge that life as a manager can be difficult.
Who are you backing?
Can Celtic’s finishing numbers be spun positively?
To Kenny’s credit, to get onto that many big chances in the first place is a clear sign of promise, as many coaches and ex-strikers will attest to.
Last season, when Celtic came within four goals of breaking their all-time scoring record in a league campaign, they missed 96 big chances in 38 games, a rate similar to that of this season.
So creatively, they weren’t even that far ahead of this season. They were just a lot better at finishing – Maeda was on better form, and Kyogo Furuhashi and Adam Idah knew the way to goal.
This season, the team’s only reliable goalscorer has been Benjamin Nygren. He has 15 league goals this season, with just six big chances missed.
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