Spotlight on Hatate

Making sense of a misfiring midfield

On the most recent podcast with Martin, he asked me whether there was evidence for the current midfield and their collective performance.

I couldn’t really answer, and I am still unsure of a framework for assessing whether the various weaknesses in the team at the moment are contributing to individual performance and vice versa in terms of how to apportion that attribution. Maybe it doesn’t matter! Fix the weaknesses!

I have already explored Captain Callum McGregor’s start to the campaign in this piece. My feeling is that there is a fair chunk of normal age decline going on here, but by looking at the other midfielders, maybe we can get closer to the answer.

Shortly, there will be a long-form piece on Benjamin Nygren going up on the Celtic Way. But in any case, I discussed his start to his Celtic career on the same podcast referenced above, so you get the idea.

For today, I want to focus on the other component of the midfield three, Reo Hatate.

One of those rumoured to have been angling for a move, but not facilitated nor replaced, he has appeared in 4.68 worth of 90 minutes thus far. Always be cautious about the small sample size for this season’s data.