It would be madness if the award went anywhere else

The goal scorers always get the attention. Every player on the field has an important job to do for their team but when it comes to the glory and headlines, you cannot beat the man that puts the ball in the back of the net.

When it comes to the SPL this season, Kenny Miller has blazed a trail by himself and with ten strikes in the league in just six games, Miller has picked up the award for two months in a row. The consistency of the player, who has scored in every league match, is that of a player at the top of his form and Rangers fans certainly haven’t missed Kris Boyd in the slightest.

The signings of Nikica Jelavic and James Beattie gave the Ibrox fans a lift but it has been Miller, ably assisted by Stevie Naismith, that have had the Ibrox fans cheering this season.

With 10 league goals already, Kenny Miller has scored more goals than:
Motherwell, who have scored 8 goals
Hearts, who have scored 9 goals
Dundee United, who have scored 6 goals
Aberdeen, who have scored 9 goals
Inverness Caley, who have scored 8 goals
Kilmarnock, who have scored 7 goals
Hibs, who have scored 6 goals
Hamilton, who have scored 5 goals
St Johnstone, who have scored 4 goals and
St Mirren, who have scored 5 goals

In short, Kenny Miller has outscored every SPL team apart from Celtic after 6 games.

For that reason alone, Kenny Miller is the 100% deserving winner of both the SPL player of the month awards and now the challenge is for Kenny Miller to go out and grab a hat-trick of the awards.

Goals at Tynecastle on Saturday would go a long way to giving Miller every chance of doing so.

Could Kenny Miller beat Kris Boyd’s highest season tally?

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Hoops hoping

There is still about four hours to kick-off at Ibrox and frankly, there is not much more to add to everything that has been already said. So we won’t bother.

As they are at home, we’ve already ran through the Rangers build up with a few video goals, so now it is time for visitors Celtic.

It is probably a must win game for Celtic if they still want to win the league so a few goals like the ones below are a necessity for everyone of a green and white persuasion.

The first video is going back a couple of years with Maciej Zurawski’s winner at Ibrox

The next goal is from the last time Celtic won at Ibrox, which was December 2008 with Scott McDonald grabbing the only goal of the game. The Australian striker is no longer at Celtic Park but hoops fans will be hoping that Robbie Keane can fill his boots and net the winner for the title chasers today.

The last goal is the Celtic goal from the Ibrox clash earlier on in the season. It came from the penalty spot with Aiden McGeady sticking the ball past Alan McGregor in the Rangers goal. Celtic fans will be hoping for a Karbon copy today with the Irishman beating the Ibrox keeper….whoever it turns out to be.

Will there be a goal hero for Celtic today?

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Not much left to say

It is the morning of the Rangers versus Celtic match and is there anything more to say in the build-up?

The previews of these games are getting longer and longer but with everything that has went on this week, it has seemed particularly long. You also wonder what there is to gain by trying to give any level of insight this morning?

So many of the fans who will be heading to Ibrox for the 12:30 songs will be getting ready as we speak. This may involve some quiet reflection or it may involve getting tore into the bevy whilst party tunes of their choice play in the background.

However you get yourself fired up for these matches is up to you but there isn’t much more to be said.

That is why we are just going to give you some videos of goals from previous Ibrox matches and leave it at that for the pre-match stuff.

As they are the hosts and the team at the top, we will start with three Rangers goals. Celtic fans, don’t worry, your three goals will be coming in the next few minutes so look away now…as they say on the news when the football results are coming.

First up is the Steven Davis goal in the 1-0 Rangers at Ibrox last season. This was the last Rangers v Celtic game that was deemed as the biggest game of all time ever and the home win went a long way to securing the title.

The next two videos are Kenny Miller’s two goals from earlier this season. The Celtic defence didn’t look too clever on either occasion, the finishes were hardly top drawer…but when they cross the goal-line, no one cares and these strikes were enough to secure a 2-1 win for Rangers.

Will Davis or Miller grab goals for Rangers today?

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How is your team doing?

The SPL website is a handy place to look for statistics and today they have highlighted the goals scored and conceded from set-pieces.
SPL Stats – Set-pieces

Hearts, Motherwell and St Johnstone have all nabbed ten goals from set-pieces which place them on the top of the set-piece scoring charts.

Kilmarnock have only scored once from a set-piece, which is a terrible return. This means that Dundee United (in their game against Celtic at Tannadice) have scored from more set-pieces in just under 10 minutes than Kilmarnock have managed all season so far.

Jimmy Calderwood would be well advised to get his side onto the training ground and practising their corners and free-kicks.

Kilmarnock have also conceded the most amount of goals from set-plays, which goes a long way to explaining the clubs dismal showing in the SPL this season. Perhaps their inability to defend from dead ball situations should have been the reason to sack Jim Jeffries?

Aberdeen have the most miserly defence having only lost two goals through dead ball situations.

Both Hearts and Hamilton have set-pieces to thank for over 50% of their league goals this season. Hamilton have 60% of their goals from set-plays whereas the Hearts level clocks in at 52%.

Rangers have the second lowest percentage of set-piece goals compared to their overall total (16%) but this is more about their success in front of goal from open play as opposed to any indication of dead ball failings. 8 goals from set-plays sees Rangers firmly in the middle of goals scored but as indicated, if you can score from open play, free-kicks and corners aren’t as important as they would otherwise be.

Okay, its a bit of a fluff article but with Hearts and St Johnstone both nabbing ten goals so far from set-pieces, it could give Walter Smith on Saturday and Tony Mowbray on Sunday something extra to think about. And yes, they wont be reading this and you would think they have done their homework already!

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Celtic need to get a better balance

Aiden McGeady tops the Celtic SPL assist list, which isn’t a surprise given the run of form the Republic of Ireland of star has been in of late. With two central midfielders more suited to sitting and pushing the ball wide, Celtic are definitely reliant on getting the ball wide to create chances.

There are two other Celtic players in the list of top 12 players for assists.

You may think that Scott McDonald or Georgios Samaras would be in there but no, the two other players are the full backs.

Andy Hinkel and Danny Fox have taken their fair share of criticism for the shambles that has been Celtic’s defence this season but they have played a strong role in the attacking play of the club.

It is not uncommon to see the Celtic wide men cut inside, allowing space for the full backs to overlap and cross, drive or cut balls back into the box. In fact, if the Celtic forwards could get into the box more often or learn how to finish, the full backs would likely have more assists to their name.

For all that both of the full backs are listed; their assists come from different styles.

Hinkel is the full-back who will get down to the by-line or into the box and then fizz the ball across whereas Fox takes a great number of dead ball situations for Celtic.

Maybe not as well as many Celtic fans would wish for but with 3 assists, considering he has missed a number of games through injury, he hasn’t done too badly in the oppositions half.

They both need to improve their defensive work though. Hinkel’s marking for cross balls coming to the back post area leave a lot to be desired and Danny Fox needs to work harder to stop crosses coming into the Celtic area.

The presence of Celtic’s full backs in the assist table shows that Tony Mowbray is bringing his style of football to Celtic Park…but is it at the expense of defensive solidity?

Celtic’s attacking full-backs…good or bad?

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Equals Larsson’s SPL goals record

The important thing for Rangers fans is that they have secured all three points against Dundee United in next to no time at all. Yes, Peterborough showed on Monday that teams can bounce back from a 4-0 deficit but it would be the biggest shock if Rangers didn’t see this game out.

Rangers have been in fantastic form of late and once again, they blew their opponents away at Ibrox very early on.

There was a blizzard in the air in Govan with the snow falling but one man who is not put off by a blizzard of white powder is Kris Boyd.

An early Boyd goal is almost as commonplace at Ibrox as a home side penalty and yet again, the Ayrshire striker made no mistake from the spot.

His second came when he thundered in a 25 yard free-kick after Steven Davis tapped the ball to him.

Boyd completed his hat-trick inside the opening half hour and this goal saw him draw level with Henrik Larsson with respect to goals in the SPL.

158 SPL goals.

It is quite a feat isn’t it? Larsson scored goals in the season before the SPL started so Larsson still outstrips the Rangers man with regards to top flight goals in Scotland but give the Rangers striker his due for now.

Don’t forget, a large number of these goals were scored for Kilmarnock, where the chances were not as freely made as they are at Ibrox.

For once, you may find a few Celtic fan’s hoping that Boyd gets another in the second half. After all, he is going to break Larsson’s SPL scoring record at some point. Maybe it would be better to do it at Ibrox rather than at Celtic Park on Sunday.

Boyd has never scored at Celtic Park in his entire career, in fact, Larsson has put the ball into the Celtic net more times than Boyd (2 to 1) but the way Celtic fans are feeling at the moment, it may be written for Boyd to strike on Sunday.

As an aside, Peter Houston doesn’t want the United job does he?

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Hibs showed an efficiency in chance taking

There are probably as many clichés and quotes about statistics as there are actual statistics but WeKnowSFA want to kick off this analysis with the best stats quote ever;

In football, the most important thing is the final result but that is not necessarily a true reflection of the game. An example of this would be the Hearts v Celtic match at Tynecastle on Sunday.

Hearts fans won’t care about how they got the three points, they got them but on any other day, its likely they would have lost out.

Celtic, who played with ten men for an hour had 17 efforts on goal compared to Hearts 7.

In fact, the Jambos only managed to get three efforts on target but with two of them flying beyond Artur Boruc, they had enough to win the game.

Put simply, it doesn’t matter how many chances you create, its making them count. Celtic are playing better attacking football than Gordon Strachan’s team managed last season. However, many will argue that Strachan’s team would at least have grabbed a draw in this game, even after Loovens horror show.

To put it into a wider context, WeKnowSFA has looked at all 5 SPL games from the weekend.

Unsurprisingly, Rangers created the most chances at the weekend, 21 efforts in total against a hapless Motherwell at Ibrox. The following chart shows the number of shots each team managed at the weekend, please click on the chart to view it full-size.

Rangers and Celtic making the most chances won’t be a surprise to many Scottish football watchers, although Falkirk and Kilmarnock coming next may raise a few eyebrows.

As stated with Celtic though, it’s not the making of chances, its the taking of them.

The following chart shows the percentage of chances taken,please click on the chart to view it full-size.

Hibs scored with two-thirds of their chances at Pittodrie, making for a ruthlessly efficient away victory. Yogi’s boys in green and white only had three efforts but a 2-0 win in Aberdeen is not to be sniffed at.

Aberdeen and St Mirren never scored but of the teams who did notch, Celtic had a scoring ratio of 5% of their chances.

With Scott McDonald, Giorgios Samaras and Marc Antoine Fortune all getting game time at Tynecastle, the wages earned by these players should be returning a better ratio than that.

The Celtic defence are giving their fans nightmares but the strikers should be doing more to ensure victories as well. With the likelihood of the backline losing a goal being relatively high, Celtic need to score at least two or three to win a game (which wasn’t enough in Falkirk or Vienna). They are making more than enough chances but they need to turn these chances into goals.

Rangers have shown in recent weeks that you can turn chances into goals, 9 in their past two games, and if Celtic can’t keep the pace, they may slip further behind in the title race.

As Hibs proved, if you keep it tight at the back, you don’t need to make a multitude of chances, if one chance leads to one goal, it could be enough to win a game.

However, the underlying issues beneath the stats should definitely give some managers food for thought as they prepare for the games in the Festive season?

Do you agree with Ebbe Skovdahl about stats?

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Three and easy for the Teddy Bears

Kris Boyd loves his early goals as yet again the Ibrox hitman struck early to send Rangers on their way to a comfortable win. News of Celtic’s victory at Fir Park would have filtered through to Ibrox before kick-off but if the Teddy Bears were disappointed, it didn’t show.

Okay, there was a defensive slip but DaMarcus Beasley reacted quickly and set the burly striker up to blast Rangers ahead for the first minute had elapsed. There is still continual criticism of Boyd and his inability to do it in the big games but that is doing the striker a dis-service.

If it was so easy, why does Boyd stand out so much for his goal scoring record? It clearly isn’t easy and praise must be given to the striker.

Boyd made it two for him and Rangers when he stuck home a penalty. Celtic fans may laugh at Boyd but how they must wish they had someone who they could rely on with a penalty. When the penalty was awarded, all of Ibrox would have known where the ball was ending up and Boyd didn’t disappoint. At this stage, the only debate would be if Boyd could get a hat-trick.

A third goal did come for Rangers but it wasn’t from Boyd, it was the Spaniard Nacho Novo. Novo may be unlikely to win any awards for his antagonistically titled autobiography but Rangers fans wont care about that. Novo put a fair look on the scoreline as he fired home after Kenny Miller’s shot was saved.

That was the end of the scoring leaving Kris Boyd 5 goals behind Henrik Larsson’s SPL record and Rangers two points behind Celtic. United travel to Tannadice this midweek where a victory will see them back on top of the league.

With chasing rivals Hibernian dropping points at Kilmarnock and Dundee United unable to defeat Hearts at Tynecastle, Rangers have opened up a gap behind them and will have Celtic in their sights.

How will Rangers fare at Tannadice?

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Samaras and McDonald have something to aim for.

3 home wins in a week will please any fan but are there signs that Celtic are picking up a head of steam? The Europa League win over Hapoel Tel Aviv featured some good work from the front two but this was continued against Aberdeen.

Many will say that Aberdeen were not at their best, Rangers fans will say that Aberdeen and/or McGhee had no intention of leaving Celtic Park with anything but it was a good performance by the Hoops.

It is about time the East End of Glasgow club pulled things around but the World Cup draw may have added an extra spring in the step of some of the players. Everyone knows who has qualified for the World Cup but the draw for fixtures makes it all seem a bit more real.

Skippy and Sammy need to impress

Scott McDonald was not included in the latest Australian national team squad so he really needs to grab goals and positive press to force his way back in.

Opening the scoring is one such was to do it and the Aussie hitman was on the end of a great move featuring Marc Crosas and Andy Hinkel. Hinkel himself will be dreaming of a World Cup place and his attacking style is one thing he has in his favour.

Playing for Celtic is the dream of many fans but for the foreign players who come to Scotland to ply their trade, it is only natural that they will be focused on representing their country. If Celtic can get the benefit from increased hard work, then their fans wont mind too much and it will give Hoops fans players to cheer on next summer.

Goals are what strikers are measured in but in the past few games; McDonald has been pulling his weight in all areas of the pitch. There can be a few jokes made about the expanse of the strikers waistline but this sort of performance will go a long way to dampening down the doubters.

And what Skippy could do, Sammy could do better in the second half. A simple header and lobbing finish showcased two different types of finishes the Greek striker has in his locker and the sort of thing that could illuminate the World Cup in South Africa.

With two away games coming up, a true test of the form of the striking duo will be found at Fir Park and Tynecastle. If Skippy and Sammy can earn six points from these two games for their clubs, the mood and optimism at Celtic Park will be sky high.

Hoops fans, which of your players will make the biggest impact in South Africa?

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Kilmarnock captain Kevin Kyle has went through a lot of strife in life so a missed penalty isn’t going to hurt him.

At the time, Kilmarnock were 2-0 down with time virtually up, so it was unlikely to be anything other than a consolation strike. However, after Kyle missed, Killie managed to grab a goal back and this left the Kilmarnock striker rueing what might have been.

Even though he has missed chunks of the season through to injury, Kyle is the club’s top goalscorer, with 6 in total and 4 in the SPL. His next nearest challenger in the SPL is Jamie Hamill, with two.

You can see why Kyle has issued a plea for his team-mates to get their goal-scoring boots on;

“When you’re playing well and not getting ahead it normally bites you on the bum, and that’s what’s happened.”

The form of Kyle has been enough to earn him a recall to the Scottish squad and his long-term future at Rugby Park will be questioned.

With the January transfer window looming large, there will be a number of clubs in the SPL and Championship who may fancy taking a punt on Kyle. Kilmarnock have serious debts to contend with and any reasonable transfer bid will have to be examined.

The thing is though, the cost of losing Kyle may be far greater than the money received for selling him.

8 goals at Rugby Park is not the lowest return for a home team in the SPL but the away form shows something very different. Kilmarnock have played six games away from home but have only notched one goal in the league. This has resulted in one draw and five defeats away from the home comforts of Rugby Park.

This tells the tale of why Kilmarnock are one point off the bottom of the SPL.

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