You Are the Weakest Link... Goodbye.

As a self-confessed statto, I really enjoyed The Numbers Game: Why Everything You Know About Football Is Wrong by Chris Anderson and David Sally.

It wouldn't be everyone's cup of tea, especially for people like me who were brought up on the  Celtic tradition of open, attacking football, but it is well worth a read.

Amongst other things, the authors suggest that football is a weakest link game, ie any team is only as strong as its weakest link.

Statistics suggest that it is far more important to not concede a goal than it is to actually score a goal. In a league match, not conceding guarantees at least one point, while scoring a goal is a guarantee of nothing.

That being the case, so the theory goes, defensive players are far more valuable than attackers, and if you have a player who regularly makes mistakes that lead to conceding goals, it can, and frequently does, prove fatal to any ambitions of silverware.

One way of assessing a team is to assign a value out of ten to each player, 1 being least and 10 best.

Football being a weakest link game, the stronger of any two teams is the one whose weakest player is better. For example, a team consisting of nine 8's, a 10 and a 4 may look stronger than a team consisting of eleven 7's. But in practice, over the course of a season the first team will lose more matches because that '4' will result in so many mistakes being made, goals conceded and points dropped.

The eleven steady players will not hand out regular thrashings, but they'll drop fewer points due to less mistakes being made over the season.

Now it should go without saying that unless Celtic gets really lucky in uncovering a hidden gem, we cannot afford to buy 10's. 10's cost way too much in transfer fees and wages and if we do manage to sign a 10 before anyone else realises he is a 10, he will soon be on his way when playing for Celtic reveals his true worth to our friends in the south.

The good news though, if The Numbers Game is correct, is that we don't need any 10's anyway. It is much more important to avoid signing 4's or 5's than it is to sign even 8's or 9's.

Dave Jones once said that Joe Ledley is at least a 7 every match and he certainly never let Celtic down, while never really being spectacular. Perhaps that is the kind of player Celtic needs to fill the team with to maximise our results/progress in Europe.

Celtic can afford to buy 7's. Celtic has a chance of holding onto 7's. Celtic can pick up 7's for a reasonable price.

Maybe what our scouting and coaching teams should be doing is avoiding signing 5's and 6's. The kind of players who try to make mazy runs out of defence. The kind of players who run into trouble in midfield due to poor decision making. The kind of players who lose their man in the penalty box because they are ball-watching. The kind of players who lose possession because of a poor first touch, or lack of confidence to hold onto the ball long enough to pass it on to a teammate.

We're talking about the basics here. Can you take to the field and do the simple things well?

Just as all you want from a goalkeeper is that he saves the shots he should save and the Hollywood saves are a bonus, maybe that applies to every position on the pitch.

Maybe all we need is a striker who scores the goals he should score, we create enough chances after all. Any spectacular overhead kicks, gravity-defying diving headers and breath-taking 25 yard volleys are a bonus.

If you go through the Celtic team that faced Maribor in your head, I'm sure you'll very quickly form a picture of who the 7's were and who the 5's and 6's were. However you compare our players to the Maribor line-up, it can't be denied that on the night, we had a 5 or two in our side, while they did not. It was a weakest-link game and our weakest-link was not as good as Maribor's weakest-link no matter how well Callum McGregor or Virgil van Dijk played.

Moving forward, Celtic do not need to splash millions on 8's or 9's to qualify for the Champions League and make an impression when we get there. We need to stop signing 5's and 6's, of whom we have too many.

We don't need to buy that expensive striker to improve the team, we need to replace those weakest links who are costing us so dearly.