Can Rodgers rediscover Celtic's attacking X-factor?

Brendan Rodgers' Celtic are seeking a first win in four games across all competitions when they host Motherwell

Scottish Premiership: Celtic v Motherwell

Venue: Celtic Park, Glasgow Date: Sunday, 4 October Kick-off: 15:00 BST

Coverage: Listen on BBC Radio Scotland Extra, MW & Sounds, live text commentary on the BBC Sport website & app

On a Thursday night full of arresting statistics the one about Celtic firing blanks is hard to get your head around.

A previously swashbuckling team now struggles to blast its way out of a paper bag on a regular basis. On Sunday they face a confident Motherwell.

In losing 2-0 at home to Braga on Thursday evening Brendan Rodgers' side recorded their fifth goalless performance of the season, which for them is only 12 games old. Not since 1991-92 have Celtic gone goalless in so many games this early in a season.

Of course, there is a caveat in the guise of Kelechi Iheanacho's strike that was ruled out bewilderingly for a ghost handball, but the point about Celtic's creative travails still stands.

They're desperately out of sorts in attack. Rodgers has accepted it as fact and says he has to come up with a solution.

The stat that startles is Celtic went goalless five times last season too, but in 57 games. In Ange Postecoglou's second season they failed to score only four times in 53 matches.

In the Premiership, Hearts have scored almost double Celtic's number of goals. Motherwell, Dundee United, Hibs, Kilmarnock and Livingston have all outscored Celtic in the league. This kind of thing is unheard of in the modern age.

Rodgers is a good enough manager to turn this around and maybe that starts on Sunday. Maybe. But before and after the defeat to Braga, he mentioned some of the team's numbers from last season by way of stark contrast.

In the first 12 games of last season Celtic scored 38 goals. In the first 12 of this season they've scored 17. Rodgers scratched his head in trying to figure it out, but it doesn't take a genius to hit on a reason.

Loss of vital game-breakers

Celtic have sold a lot of goals and ingenuity, not just recently but over the last couple of years. And they've done a really poor job in replacing it.

In the days of Jota-Kyogo Furuhashi-Liel Abada or Daizen Maeda-Kyogo-Nicolas Kuhn they had a whole lot of danger up front and plenty more behind with the outstanding Matt O'Riley.

Even on days when their game was humdrum they had a number of players who could produce something that unlocked a stubborn defence.

Kyogo was a master at it. In his time, he scored 85 goals and came up with almost 20 assists. Kuhn was another - 39 goal involvements in a season and a half. O'Riley was another - 27 goals and more than 30 assists.

If you add in Abada, Jota (back at Celtic but still out with a serious injury) and Adam Idah (hardly the perfect striker but he scored plenty) then Celtic have offloaded around 227 goals and 120 assists since Jota (15 goals and 12 assists in his final season) left for Al-Ittihad in summer 2023.

Many of those players had pace, vision and unpredictability. They scared opponents. They had X-factor. They kept Celtic's tempo high, got in behind defences and had a habit of turning a difficult 0-0 into an impressive win.

We're going back a few seasons in the case of some of them, so here's something from earlier this year. Celtic scored in both games against Bayern Munich in the Champions League in February. Kuhn was still at Celtic at the time and scored. Maeda was still, well, Maeda.

The xG (expected goals) metric isn't for everybody but it tends to back up in statistical form what we know to be true with the naked eye.

Against Bayern they had an xG of 1.37 in the first game and 1.12 in the second. That's modest, but they were playing a stellar side.

This season they had an xG of 0.56 and 1.22 in games against lowly Kairat Almaty in the Champions League, an xG of 0.19 against Rangers and 0.64 against Braga. Better against Bayern than against Kairat, Rangers and Braga? It's quite the fall.

Celtic's poor recruitment 'inescapable'

It's not rocket science. Celtic used to have really effective attackers and now they don't, with a few exceptions. Sebastian Tounekti looks a livewire in the Jota mould on the left and Iheanacho has made a promising enough start through the middle.

The rest of it is dull, frankly. Maeda is a shadow of himself having missed out on the move away in the summer he wanted. Against Braga, he was replaced by the 34-year-old James Forrest.

Michel-Ange Balikwisha and Johnny Kenny were both unused substitutes against Braga despite Rodgers being desperate for a goal. Two strikers signed in the summer, Shin Yamada and Callum Osmand, were not deemed good enough to make Rodgers' Europa League squad.

Reo Hatate, usually at the heart of everything that's been good about Celtic, is not the influence he was.

Callum McGregor, the great totem of the team for years, has been quiet. He was on four goals this time last season. He has yet to score this season.

Benjamin Nygren has come up with some goals and assists but he doesn't appear to have O'Riley's ability to shape games. Not yet.

McGregor said on Thursday evening the new players are still feeling their way into life at Celtic and he's right. He also said the team need to be quicker, slicker and more efficient in everything they do and he was right about that, too.

They have a lot to work out. In terms of league form across their first six games they're four points and five goals worse off.

Against Braga, Paulo Bernardo was picked ahead of Hatate and the £11m Arne Engels against Braga. He didn't really perform, so is it back to Hatate now, or Engels, who has only started four games this season? Rodgers hasn't been able to get the best out of the Belgian.

The manager doesn't want to get dragged back into the debate about Celtic's poor performance in the transfer window but it's inescapable. It's there at every turn.

Rodgers is missing game-breakers and he's also had cause to lament the loss of Alistair Johnston, a victim of a hamstring injury on 20 August. He's missed the past eight games and Celtic have won only three of them.

Teenager Colby Donovan has taken his opportunity in the Canada right-back's absence, but Johnston, as well as being a good defender, adds energy to Celtic's attack. At this point last season he'd already scored two goals while assisting two others.

Johnston will be back after the international break, which is good news for Rodgers as he tries to solve the problems.

Celtic were booed off on Thursday night. Starting on Sunday a bunch of players need to find themselves again and get the verve back.