Rangers and Celtic remain neck-and-neck in the Scottish Premiership title race with only one goal separating the duo as we enter a hectic period in both club’s seasons.
Both Old Firm sides look very strong and there’s hardly a rolling paper between them ahead of 10 matches which could make or break either team’s campaigns.
But could a revealing stat, researched by Scottish football stattos Modern Fitba, hint to what could the difference in this year’s title race to end all title races?
As the table shows, Rangers are the side least reliant on only one player in the Scottish Premiership this season.
The data concerns which player has the highest percentage of expected goal involvements, that’s goals and assists, in each side.
Alfredo Morelos might top Rangers’ list with 21.1% and 6.26, but Rangers are the least reliant on their key man of any team in the league.
Contrast that with Celtic’s Odsonne Edouard, who is sitting at 32.6% (9.41) for the Parkhead club, making them the side third most reliant on their key man in the division.
This proves just how reliant our Old Firm rivals are on the Frenchman, whilst the data concerning Morelos suggests Rangers’ expected goals involvements are spread wider throughout the team.
With Vakoun Bayo misfiring and Leigh Griffiths still out of action, Celtic don’t have any reliable backups for the in-form striker.
If Celtic were to lose Edouard – even for a small stretch of games – could their over-reliance on the former PSG youth hand the advantage to Rangers in any title race?
