Matthew Hobbs
BBC Sport

Last season it took Celtic 27 league matches to lose twice – they reached that mark after nine games this season with Sunday’s 3-1 defeat at Hearts.

The data suggests that underpinning poor performances this
season has seen a significant drop-off in Celtic’s effectiveness in attack.

The reigning champions have scored just 12 goals in the
Scottish Premiership, ranking them fifth overall, with Motherwell, currently
seventh in the division, among the four sides to have scored more goals at this
stage.

Celtic’s lack of goals stems from an inability in this
campaign to take their chances.

They have recorded 329 touches in the opposition box – the
most of any team in the Scottish top flight – and yet they have converted just nine
of 34 big chances (as defined by Opta) in this campaign.

Only Aberdeen, currently second-bottom in the table, have a
worse conversion rate than Celtic’s 26.5%.

Image source, BBC Sport

There is mitigation in the sense that Celtic sold key
forward Kyogo Furuhashi to Rennes in January and then lost replacement Jota to
a serious knee injury three months later.

But with transfer business closed until the new year, the
incoming Martin O’Neill will have to work with what he’s got and Celtic’s
players are underperforming across the board.

Ten of the current squad have underperformed their expected
goals tally in 2025-26, with Kelechi Iheanacho the biggest culprit (-1.36).

Benjamin Nygren is the only Celtic player to have scored
more than two league goals this season.