David Turnbull may be out of sight at the moment, as the Celtic midfielder recovers from the most fashionable of injuries amongst Celtic players this season, the hamstring injury, but he certainly shouldn’t be out of mind, not when statistically Turnbull the best supplier of goalscoring opportunities in the Scottish top flight.
The team over at the brilliant The Analyst have been looking at Celtic’s improved performances and having taken a deep dive into Celtic’s stats they’ve unearthed the importance of David Turnbull to Ange Postecoglou’s Celtic revolution and it has reaffirmed their belief that Scotland missed a trick in not giving Turnbull some Euro 2020 exposure.
According to the numbers crunched Celtic may also welcome the return of David Turnbull from injury for the business end of the season, even with the recent signings of Reo Hatate and Matt O’Riley performing admirably in the No8 positions alongside Tom Rogic.
‘Overall, in the Scottish Premiership this season, the leading player for expected assists (including set pieces) is David Turnbull (0.43).
After seeing a move to Celtic in the summer of 2019 ruined thanks to a terrible knee injury, Turnbull’s move to the Bhoys eventually came just over a year later following a long spell of rehabilitation. Celtic were willing to wait for their man as they knew what he would eventually bring.’
‘We pinpointed him as a man to watch for Scotland at Euro 2020, but despite an excellent 2020-21 domestic season at Celtic, where he excelled in various attacking metrics, he didn’t get given a single minute of action at the tournament. ‘
‘He’s doing the same again in 2021-22, with the 22-year-old the player with the most attacking sequence involvements in the Scottish Premiership (177) – a clear display of how involved Turnbull is in everything good for the league leaders this season.’
There is no doubting the natural talents of David Turnbull and Celtic certainly purchased one of the Country’s brightest prospects when they eventually were able to sign the former Motherwell man.
Turnbull’s return to a Celtic squad, in need of quality options to rotate in that vital No8 position for Ange Postecoglou, will be welcome indeed. In fact, Turnbull himself will no doubt benefit from talented teammates to share the attacking load as the season progresses, as it would be difficult not to argue that the players injury won’t have been helped by having to play every week and a lack of suitably talented alternatives from which Ange Postecoglou could call on.
With Turnbull producing these sorts of numbers prior to the January signings of Reo Hatate and Matt O’Riley, it’s exciting to think what the Celtic midfielder could bring to the title race for Celtic once he’s recovered from injury and has a helping hand. And stats like this may even make Steve Clarke consider if Turnbull shouldn’t play a more important role for the national team as well.
Niall J
He’ll have a job getting his place back.
O’Reilly and Hatate much better all round players.