The Celtic Left Back Conundrum Who is Better? Greg Taylor or Diego Laxalt? Bhoys Analytics look through their SPFL data to show how each is performing this season?

Taylor and Laxalts Radars. This is a good indication of what the data will show. It also makes clear on a surface level who has performed better. Worth noting that Taylor has played 1200 league minutes compared to Laxalts 900.

Left Back Creativity Taylor has provided well creatively this season compared to Laxalt with 0.25xA compared to a dismal 0.03xA. The difference in offensive quality can be viewed in crossing accuracy of 34.2% to 22.2%.

Taylor’s crossing data is good but even more so that he crosses 2 times more P90 than Laxalt at 5.7 crosses P90. As far as I can tell Laxalt has only generated xA from 2-4 chances in the SPFL which is appalling for a Celtic full-back. Taylor has bettered this in single games.

So if Laxalt isn’t providing more creatively, then surely defensively he far outperforms Taylor? Sadly not. Laxalt lags behind Taylor on defensive duel success by 5.7%. He performs slightly better aerially.

A big issue Laxalt has is leaving his position to press when it’s not necessary (like Scott Brown & Shane Duffy) leaving a big gap in behind. This is down to Lennon always shouting to press as he needs to appear to be saying something. Data below indicates Taylor will hold shape.

Passing wise, Taylor comes out on top again. Providing more passes & more passes into the final 3rd than Laxalt with a higher percentage success rate.

Final Thoughts

Based on the data, it’s clear Taylor performs significantly better than Laxalt. I understand there was an argument that Laxalt had harder opponents, but his data is just so poor that any argument can’t justify the low-performance level

Verdict: Don’t buy Laxalt