A Striking Imbalance

What attacker performances tell us about club incompetence and the vagaries of football

We’ve discussed endlessly the paucity of attacking talent at Celtic this season.

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.