You don’t need stats to know that Daizen Maeda and Benjamin Nygren are two very different players.
Nygren is Celtic’s top scorer this season with 20, eleven more than any other Hoops player.
The leading goalscoring role belonged to Maeda last season, in a very different Celtic team under Brendan Rodgers. The Japan forward’s total of 33 was 12 more than Nicolas Kuhn in second.
Maeda’s drop-off can partially be explained by his finishing numbers, which are extremely damning.
Daizen Maeda and Benjamin Nygren: Celtic finishing numbers
Looking at Maeda and Nygren’s finishing through the lens of everyone’s favourite metric, expected goals, makes it a damning comparison.
Maeda has a higher xG total than Nygren this season, but in reality, he has scored eight less goals.
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Are you surprised by the stark difference between Nygren and Maeda’s finishing numbers?
The numbers are representative of two players who are in completely different goalscoring form. The finishing edge of last season’s Daizen seems to be gone.
On the other hand, you have a sharp finisher in Nygren, who needs a much lower quality of opportunity to score.
It’s worth noting that last season in the Danish Superliga with Nordsjaelland, the Swede also scored 15 goals against an expected total of 10.9.
May these numbers be a sign that Celtic need to keep a hold of Nygren? Possibly. It doesn’t bear thinking about where the club would be without his goals.
Maeda, on the other hand, is a curious case. He revealed that he came close to leaving Celtic last summer, being denied a move due to the lack of a replacement. This certainly affected his focus at the start of the season.
In the Champions League alone last season, he scored four goals.
However, it would be unfair not to mention that, as a player, Maeda is about much more than just goals. His intense sprinting capacity in and out of possession has been an asset for the team throughout his time in Glasgow.
Is this the worst group of finishers you’ve seen in a Celtic squad?
Comparing big chances missed in the Celtic squad
In terms of big chances missed, the numbers of big chances missed are even more damning for Maeda.
With 22, he leads the league, a whole six above Youssef Chermiti in second.
Celtic’s second and third-placed players, Hyunjun Yang and Johnny Kenny, both have ten, meaning that their total combined is still less than Maeda’s.
Nygren’s total of seven in 33 games further emphasises the clinical edge which has made him a frontrunner for Celtic’s player of the year
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