It has been a tumultuous season given the changes in management in Glasgow, the influence of Tony Bloom to Heart of Midlothian, and the unexpected coherence of a new style Motherwell and a newly promoted Falkirk. Hibernian have continued to be quietly effective under David Gray.

Further down the league there is intrigue in how Steven Pressley has improved Dundee, how Craig McLeish has remodelled St Mirren post Steven Robinson, and how Neil McCann is revitalising Kilmarnock with attacking football.

That leaves an under resourced Livingston cast adrift, a Dundee United side stagnating under Jim Goodwin, and the league’s “Basket Case” champions, Aberdeen.

More positive than negative indicating a league in rude health despite the coefficient evidence!

We are here to reflect (performance versus outcome) and project (what you could/should have won).

33 games in, there is plenty of data to chew.

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In terms of last season’s starters, Kyogo Furuhashi, Adam Idah and Nicolas Kuhn have all departed, Felipe Jota has missed the whole season through injury, and Daizen Maeda, allegedly wanting away last Summer, has been much less productive than prior seasons.

None of the striking replacements – Kelechi Iheanacho, Tomas Cvancara, or Junior Adamu – have mustered the 900-minute minimum for serious analysis, and the only one who has, Johnny Kenny (12.21 matches worth of minutes) has been sent out on loan to Bolton Wanderers.

What a sorry tale.

The attacking burden has fallen to Yang Hyun-jun, Maeda, Sebastian Tounekti and Benjamin Nygren.

The purpose today is simply to put their performances into context versus the forward options “normally” available to Celtic.

This analysis goes back to 2018-19 and considers any forward (striker or wide forward as Celtic have mainly played in a 4-3-3 shape) with more than 20 matches worth of minutes.

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I recommend checking back to Stephen’s article on the site from Monday and this piece from Josh McCafferty on the Celtic Way.

The recruitment and manning of the striker department have been as chaotic as much of the clubs’ performance over the last year and the authors lay that out effectively.

However, are the chances being created for the strikers to miss been sufficient? And can we attribute the lack of goals to poor finishing or lack of chance creation?

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The title race took another turn, as Celtic, fresh from hitting the front after defeating Motherwell, were buried in the sand of Tannadice whilst their rivals won at home.

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Which tastefully brings you into the wacky world of made-up charts and numbers “explaining” the tonto season of SPFL action.

Modern social media driven reporting conventions dictate I must position Heart of Midlothian’s defeat at Kilmarnock as “BOTTLE CRASHING”.

Similarly, Celtic’s home win to everyone’s darlings Motherwell was a case of “BIASED REFS KEEP CELTS TITLE HOPES HANGING BY A THREAD”.

And finally, reverting to the mores of traditional Scottish media for a second “MURRAY PARK GALACTICOS SHOW THEIR CLASS TO DISPATCH HAPLESS SAINTS”.

Such student common room slapdashery is more reason why we cherish the forensic Bit of Bully family of charts.

It’s what you expected. (“Expected”, geddit? Oh, come on!)

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Another week, another set of victories for variance over performance. Both Celtic and The Rangers rack up reasonable positive xG differences, but don’t win. Heart of Midlothian play out a coin flip match at home to Falkirk, barely generate more than 1 xG, and win.

That is not only football, but it has also been so in the SPFL virtually all season.

Hence this series, to shine a light on the stuff the genius managers would rather the children didn’t know about.

In the world of data, we are The Goonies!

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One such is to chronicle the progress of captain Callum McGregor.

The Huddle Breakdown really started due to James trying to find a platform to document the decline in captain Scott Brown’s capabilities. At the time, this was seen as a highly contrarian position to take.

I hope that, whilst celebrating McGregor’s last contract extension as being a sensible piece of talent management relative to what would be available in the market, we have also been consistent in flagging and warning about the impending decline of our decorated leader.

My position, hitherto, has been – his capabilities are clearly declining but the value he adds in the role he is given is still worth it as it is largely unobtainable in the market.

The following will be as much an assessment of the resilience of his performances under duress – a team bereft of quality – as my annual documentation of his gradual decline (spoiler alert……doh!).

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This weekend saw two dramatic come from behind victories for the Glasgow big clubs, and 11 goals scored.

The evident drop off in quality at Celtic and initially in the season, at Ibrox, plus other sides raising standards to meet, has led to a fascinating season.

The lack of any side putting together the kind of overwhelming xG difference run Celtic has made a habit, means our old friend “variance” has run amok.

Hence the focus of this series.

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The idea of using data to try and describe that would not have occurred to many in 1985.

Indeed, the raw materials would likely not have been available until the 2010s, likely much later.

And, finally, with Celtic’s domestic dominance being so overwhelming since the death of Rangers in 2012, it hasn’t felt particularly necessary. Variances made little difference in processions to the title.

Having developed a framework to assess refereeing, it felt necessary then to develop a similar framework for variance (which to some extent overlaps with the refereeing analysis). Variance has and always will be a key built in feature of football. A low scoring sport, dynamic in nature, with many moving parts, and limited ability for coaches to influence the match once in progress.

I need to stress that the variances at play this season are not in any way unique or abnormal in relation to any other season.

What is interesting, is the distribution of variance relative to the title challengers.

Another dramatic week of SPFL football, with red cards and penalties again having a big influence on matches.

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For paying subscribers, the following is included:

1. The Speedboat League – what you could or perhaps should have won – the expected points league table based on underlying performances.

2. The Banked It League – a happy synthesis of nerdom and cold, rational “the only stat that matters” as we projected forward to estimate how the league will finish.

3. The Rolling xG – the three title protagonists and their underlying xG performances for and against, or a rolling six match average basis. Can anyone get to the magic +1.5 xG standard consistently?

4. The Lucky Leprechaun League – who is benefitting from keeper play and finishing, and who is shrouded in negative perception as the ball just won’t go in and/or the opposition keep top shelfing it?

5. The Variance Monster League – calculates the impact of red cards, penalties and own goals. All the stuff the manager cannot legislate for, but their job may hinge on it, nonetheless.

Fancy a bit of bully? You know what to do.

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That rather coarse phrase is one we used to use at work, and it essentially translates as do unto others as you would do to yourself. Or, if you are going to bang on in the podcasts about “variance”, “controllables”, “uncontrollables”, “luck” etc, be prepared to back up those observations empirically!

We all love football and much of that love stems from the unpredictability of it. It is a low scoring invasion game. Goals, or even near goals, are thrilling. The thrills generated from defending your own castle (the goal) or breaching the enemy’s, are visceral.

Also, the constant motion and dynamic movement mean there is always so much going on to grab the attention. It also makes it more difficult to analyse, and that leaves room for significant debate.

All those factors lead to a reality that the “better” team wins much less often that in most sports. American sports artificially level the playing field with off field controls around finances and recruitment. All those sports, plus e.g. rugby and cricket, would be dire if a lopsided talent match up occurred. With football, a severely over matched team can still put up a decent fight.

The low scoring nature means there is significant room for variance factors to influence.

Additionally, as humans, we virtually all suffer from degrees of outcome bias. That is, our sentiment and attitudes are framed by the result as opposed to the performances. The “it’s the only stat that matters” (i.e. the score) brigade being one tail of the distribution.

Here at Huddle Breakdown towers, we are probably the other end of that spectrum!

Which brings us to the Speedboat League series.

Knowing how the current season is playing out as regards these views, I’ll start with what last season looked like so that a full campaign can be used as a reference point.

Speedboat League 2024/25

This was the final expected points table last season.

And here is a summary of variance with what happened.

The main victims of variance were St Johnstone, who finished with over nine points less than expected. Dundee were the fortunate beneficiaries, something their board must have recognised as they sacked manager Tony Docherty at the end of the season regardless.

Aberdeen and Dundee United were the main overperformers, with the Dons being flagged from an early point in the season whereby their opening unbeaten run could not be supported by the underlying numbers.

Finally, note that the other two major differences can be found at Heart of Midlothian, under Neil Critchley and Kilmarnock, under one Derek McInnes.

We’ll develop that narrative further.

Now to introduce the two new toys in the Bully box.

Lucky Leprechaun League 2024/25 (xG)

Yep, this will offend someone or other!

Most importantly, what is it?

The LLL table attempts to show the per 90-minute impact of the following:

1. What your teams’ finishing adds to xG for;

2. What your opponents’ finishing adds to xG against;

3. What your goalkeeper adds/subtracts from xG against; and

4. What your opponents’ goalkeepers adds/subtracts from xG for.

The value is the sum of the over or under performance relative to expected goals, of actual goals scored and conceded, per 90 minutes.

Last season, Celtic benefitted from finishing and goalkeeping variances to the tune of 0.85 xG per game. That’s some nice fortunate variance right there – equivalent to 32.3 more goals scored / less goals conceded or some mix of the two, over the season.

The top three in the standings matched those with most positive variance by these metrics.

At the bottom of the luck pile, dear old McInnes’s Kilmarnock suffered to the tune of 0.68 less goals scored or more goals conceded, than expected, per game. As we will see, don’t shed too many tears yet.

Other than the aforementioned St Johnstone, very unfortunate under the progressive leadership of Simone Valakari, most other teams were within a reasonably narrow band.

Our next attempt to quantify variance comes in the form of (more cheese ahoy):

The Variance Monster League 2025/25 (xPts)

The VML changes currency from xG to expected points (xPts).

The principle here is that football throws up some unexpected events you cannot plan for (cough, unless your name is James Tavernier, of course, cough, cough).

Penalties (massively disproportionate reward relative to the “crime”), red cards and own goals are dramatic and unexpected aspects of football. They generally have an impact on the game, given the low scoring nature. I doubt there is a sport in the word with such an impactful potential outcome as a penalty in football.

I calculate the xPts impact of each such event. To do this you take the game state (the score) and the time of the event and calculate how it adds or subtracts from the points total each team can be expected to achieve given that state.

This is a total for the season adding the benefit received from penalties awarded, own goals gifted, and red cards to the opponents, and subtracting the expected impact of penalties conceded, own goals scored and red cards received.

Over the season, the team benefitting the most from the volume and timing of such events was Ross County. They, net, received nearly five points more than expected due to these unforeseen events. They finished five points above St Johnstone, who managed an estimated -2.28 points less than expected. So, you can see how impactful the distribution of such events can be, albeit the Staggies lost in the play offs in any case.

Note how Hearts were the most hindered by being on the wrong side of the vagaries of football. Poor Critchley could not catch a break.

The Champions also benefitted by 2.25 expected points from footballs slings and arrows.

This hopefully sets the scene for what constitutes measurable variance, and the impact of it over a season.

Now, finally, lets reveal the current state of play in the SPFL this season.

Speedboat League 2025/26

A slight twist here is that since not all teams have played the same number of matches, I am showing the average number of expected points per game instead of the total.

The expected points are calculated from underlying performance metrics such that each game there is a percentage allocation for a home win, draw, away win, and this is reflected in the points expected to have been won.

The expected points table matches the actual table quite well other than the two most important positions. Both the league leaders and the team at the bottom are flipped.

Celtic’s underlying numbers SHOULD have led to a quite comfortable lead by this stage. But of course, it hasn’t and we will dive into that in a bit.

Once again Dundee is managing to extricate themselves from what performance levels suggest should be firm relegation form, to be higher in the table.

But that is all “what you could have won”, so let’s take what reality was served up and add back underlying performance to try and do the impossible and predict the future.

The Banked It League 2025/26

This view builds out from what points have been achieved, then projects forward using expected points based on underlying performance.

Following the draw at the weekend, Hearts have increased their expected lead over Celtic and are now over three points ahead by final projections. Given there were no discrepancies more than nine points last season, that is already looking like a promising position for the Jambos.

The Rangers continue to quietly overperform their underlying performance, but as yet, not quite enough to suggest they will take second place, but it is tight.

Admirable Motherwell are not expected to have enough to challenge the top three.

At the bottom, Livingston are adrift, more than one win away on an xPts basis.

Overall, the top and bottom sixes look locked in, ten games out from the split.

Now let’s dig into that ol’ variance.

The Lucky Leprechaun League 2025/26 (xG)

Remember, this is measuring the gap between expected and actual finishing at both ends and expected and actual goalkeeper play at both ends. The values are expressed as positive or negative xG per 90 minutes as a result.

Celtic’s underlying positive variance put a shine on Brendan Rodgers’s campaign last season by a factor of 0.85 xG per game.

But McInnes’s Hearts are skying the park on that one. By nearly 1 whole xG per game in their favour. Add in the team underperforming at both ends to the greatest degree is Celtic, by -0.55 xG per game, that is 1.5 xG per game in Hearts favour from finishing and keeper play.

That is an enormous advantage from largely variable factors. We must accept that Celtic are contributing to this by steadfastly refusing to upgrade the quality of their attack, whilst also persisting with a clearly declining Kasper Schmeichel in goal.

Hearts’s over performance is less explainable as they have rotated goalkeepers, and whilst Lawrence Shankland and Claudio Braga are undoubtedly hot in finishing, have relied on low xG set pieces for goals otherwise.

As we saw with Celtic last season, such trends could persist the whole season.

Notable that Motherwell’s sweet passing football has been enhanced with positive variance at both ends of the pitch.

Dundee, of the bottom six, are the most blessed which explains the gap between them and Livingston at tail of the table.

Time to monster munch!

The Monster Variance League 2025/26 (xPts)

This nets out the positive and negative impacts per team over the season so far of penalties, red cards and own goals.

Also bear in mind this is in addition to the variances described above in the LLL. That is, there is no double counting.

So, as well as benefitting from nearly 1 xG per game and 1.5 xG over their rivals per game, Hearts have so far benefitted by 2.38 expected points from the cumulative impact of penalties, own goals and red cards.

This really is a “Leicester City” moment for them.

Can that be maintained? Does their deliberate chaos ball style actually lead to such outcomes?

I draw you back to last season and how McInnes’s Kilmarnock experienced the opposite effect. Which kind of answers the question. Chaos ball has no master when it comes to unexpected outcomes. Ride that wave, baby!

Additionally, as James has pointed out, McInnes’s Hearts underlying open play xG performance is no better or worse than Critchley’s last season, but without the variance positivity.

Again, Motherwell are benefitting from the outcomes of football’s big moments. Should their fortune turn, does their underlying performance have the resilience to avoid a mini slump?

As for Celtic, they are on the wrong side of outcomes this season, in addition to the issues of finishing and keeper play above. Recruitment in January would be crucial you’d think, albeit the variance Gods care little.

Summary

Subscribers will be familiar with most of this, and regular listeners to the podcasts will know how much we discuss variance as a key facet of football.

For newbies, I hope this puts some numerical meat on the bones of those frameworks.

I will be updating these views after each game week so please subscribe to be kept up to date with the differences between outcomes and performances when viewed through the lens of the big green eyed variance monster.

In which Celtic decide to join Heart of Midlothian and The Rangers in being a bit crap but winning anyway. With a goal from a set piece! Holy moly! It’s the future.

Being an ol’ Da, I subscribe to all these accounts on X that show goals from the 1960s, 70s, 80s etc. Love it. What is apparent apart from the weekly Somme re-enactments and fans crushed behind barriers, is the nature of most of the goals. I’d characterise the majority as: ball lofted into the box, chaos ensues, it falls to an attacker, and somehow the goal is scored.

And here we are. The Rangers now launch any throw, free kick or open play ball into the box at the earliest opportunity and hope. Hearts get the ball quickly to their three forwards and trust they will “do magic”. And it seems Martin O’Neill wishes to sign the modern equivalent of Bobo Balde, Neil Lennon and Chris Sutton through the spine of the team so we can go back to 2004 and score loads of headers.

This week’s set of dissonance triggers underlying performance markers, then.

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As the most tumultuous SPFL season in decades stumbles on, throwing up more plot lines as both Jimmy Thelin and Wilfried Nancy depart the stage, so we seek solace in the rationality of numbers.

Except this is not the reaction these guides (for that is what they are) will likely elicit.

This week especially, when minds are frazzled by derby defeat, will generate irritation levels at what “the numbers tell us”. Those levels could be off any imaginary radar Keith Jackson may possess.

A discombobulating feature of this season is that the trends in underlying performance veer in diametrically opposite directions to pervading fan sentiment.

· “Heart of Midlothian start the season brilliantly!” – actual performance levels are meh.

· “Heart of Midlothian have a stumble!” – actual performance levels improve.

· “First non “Old Firm” champions since 1985 – it’s a cert now!” – xG difference barely positive over last six matches.

· “Danny Rohl has mastered Celtic and Youssef Chermiti is the new Kris Boyd (???? – Ed)” – err, the new manager bounce appears to be over, and underlying performance is in decline.

· “Martin O’Neill – genius – he just gets the club and wins!” – underlying performance levels drop steadily

· “Nancy, get tae ….” – Celtic’s rolling xG difference touches the title winning 1.5 xG difference and is now highest in the league

Or, maybe, the data is just shite!

Well, the data is just the data. The interpretation of it is the analysis, and the analysis definitely can be shite!

Because pervading fan sentiment cannot be wrong, right?

This is what makes this season the most fascinating, and trying to analyse what is behind these trends is what we attempt on the podcasts and articles.

So – “Let’s have a look at the old scoreboard”.

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In the podcast James shared hosted by Jamie Hamilton, the hiring of Wilfried Nancy was positioned as an “experiment”. I think that is fair, but probably not how the club would have envisioned it.

Meaning, given the conservative and risk averse nature of the club, I am sure they did not intend to make a “risky” appointment. They appear to have acted “bravely” indeed, potentially recklessly. But that probably speaks to the internal command and control structures more than to a specific strategy of innovation and future proofing.

We have a likely maverick Head of Football Operations working with assuredly non footballing “board” members to source a relatively inexperienced US based coach with a distinctive but narrowly focused style of play.

That style of play is of interest to Jamie and co precisely because it goes somewhat against the grain of convention in a post Pep Guardiola (juego de posicion) and Jurgen Klopp (gegenpressing) footballing landscape.

In short, Nancy seeks to combine elements of positional play with elements of relationism – that is, the less positionally constrained seeking of space by players given license to exploit opportunities as they unfold.

It’s all a bit theoretical, although I accept there is probably a spectrum of positional to relational play upon which all clubs could be plotted with the vast majority in the middle.

No team has no structure – i.e. plays like small children in the street experiencing a football for the first time. And for most teams, football is a game played without the ball for half the time. And all professional sides will have an out of possession structure.

So anyway, this isn’t the rabbit hole I wanted to go down.

In the spirit of New Year, this is intended as a “what I want to see in 2026” piece.

In the here and now, for Nancy’s Celtic tenure, such as it is, I am looking for the three Cs.

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The final Speedboat League series of the year, as Celtic face into a 2026 filled with uncertainty and peril.

Remarkably, Celtic remain in pole position based on underlying performances, but the resilience of that position is precarious to say the least. Many structural issues persist at the club, and positive change seems unlikely.

Whilst The Rangers are saddled with a large, expensive and ineffectual squad, their management has shown that they will change personnel and senior hires to try and improve things.

Heart of Midlothian has already secured the latest batch of undervalued, low-cost talent and will have strengthened.

Meanwhile, at Celtic, stasis, paralysis, a leadership vacuum, and a big pile of cash no one seems to know what to do with.

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Originally based solely on the league table, which serves as a proxy for underlying performance, it has now been expanded to include additional artefacts every game week.

1. Speedboat League – the original, your expected points-based rankings, a “truer” reflection of the performances provided so far

2. The Banked It League – a projection into the future to estimate likely points totals given points already banked, plus underlying performances

3. ***NEW*** Rolling xG Differences – how close are the main contenders to league-winning xG differentials, or to the pit of variance monstering?

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Whilst Heart of Midlothian dispatched plucky contenders The Rangers 2-1 at Tynecastle, the respective xG’s were 1.27 to 2.17. Yet there were no howls of injustice from Ibrox regarding the outcome (well….) as most accepted they had been well beaten.

The xG’s reflected what we refer to as “game state”. Hearts were 2-0 up by halftime, and The Rangers huffed and puffed in the second half, creating limited chances while the home side was happy to contain. And when the Blues finally did score, it was in the last moments off a high xG chance, which ultimately meant very little.

Meanwhile, at Celtic Park, Wilfried Nancy experienced some “positive variance” for the first time when Aberdeen were reduced to 10 men. Albeit, as he stated, his side “provoked” this with good quality counter pressing. Thereafter, the shot count was 20-2 although, of course, Aberdeen scored!

The lesson being, single game xG tells us something but not everything, and drawing conclusions should be done carefully.

The Speedboat league gobbles all this up, and over time, hopefully settles down as a reasonable representation of performance over actual outcome.

This week, there is also a bonus view!

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But with significant differences.

You would be right to think that it is better to have points banked and to hell with how variance has assisted that. Points in the bank are more valuable, always.

But had the league campaign played out as the underlying performance metrics suggest, it would be quite different at the top.

Are Celtic right to have faith in Wilfried Nancy because of this? (To rack up 3 xG (hudlstatsbomb’s estimate) and not win is unusual).

Were Kilmarnock right to make a managerial change? The underlying numbers suggest perhaps so.

We’ll discuss in more depth on the pod.

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