| Match Pictures | Matches: 1998 – 1999 | 1998-1999 Pictures |
Trivia
- Jock Brown’s resignation put a delay on contract extensions and signings. Fergus McCann and the other executive directors at the club, including Finance Director Eric Reilly, had to get involved in the signings in the absence of Brown or a successor to the post of General Manager.
- The club share price rose by 10.4% in the wake of Brown’s resignation. The strong rumour was that Billy McNeill would be appointed as General Manager.
- Following rest and assessment Jonathon Gould started light training after his knee in jury and it was hoped that he would be fit for the forthcoming Rangers game.
- The consortium bidding to wrest control of the club from Fergus McCann again raised it’s head. Kenny Dalglish and Jim Kerr fronted this consortium but the real men behind the bid were unclear. Mark Goldberg, chairman of Crystal Palace was thought to be one. However by carefully doing the figures it looked like the ‘consortium’ were well short of the cash they would need to buy out McCann and offer the same deal to the other Celtic shareholders that would be necessary. It didn’t help when the ‘consortium’s’ bankers, Salomon Smith Barney, withdrew their support when the bid was leaked. The financial clout behind the consortium eventually turned out to be BT Capital Partners Europe, the London-based private investment arm of the Wall Street giant Bankers Trust. This was a significant development, which due to financial regulations had to be kept tight. The plc however did release a letter to all shareholders on the 10th and 11th of November.
- Sheffield Wednesday made an enquiry on the availability of Henrik Larsson and were sharply rebuffed by the club. Larsson stated that he had a three year contract and that he intended to honour it.
- Jonathon Gould signed a new 3 year contract to July 2003.
- Tony Warner arrived on a 3 month loan from Liverpool. The goalkeeper had spent much time out on loan whilst at Liverpool and had never started a first team game at Anfield. He came into the team immediately with injuries to both Gould and Kerr and only youth keeper McCondichie available.
- Reports started to appear linking David Hannah to a move away
- Lambert was suspended for the game. Mahe came back in after his own suspension. Tony Warner made his debut. Marc Rieper, Alan Stubbs, Craig Burley and Enrico Annoni were still on the injury list along with the two goalkeepers and the ‘groin injury’ Regi Blinker. Riseth ended up playing as a stand-in centre back.
- On the same day at Barrowfield Celtic under 18's defeated Livingston under 18's 4-1 in the BP Youth Cup. The Celtic team was Corr, Goodwin (McCann 69), Convery, Murray, Fraser, McGovern (Healy 69), Miller, McColligan, Crossley (Hayes 60), Keogh, Smith. The Celtic scorers were Crossley 29, Smith 33 and 64, Keogh 57.
Review
After a busy week following Jock Brown’s resignation and a 6-1 win against Dundee this result came as a bit of a slap in the face, particularly so as St Johnstone had lost 7-0 against Rangers the previous week. The game is renowned for Riseth’s ball across the goal intercepted for the winner and Riseth’s subsequent taking on the guilt whilst slating referee Martindale.
Teams
St Johnstone:
Main, McQuillan, Dasovic, Kernaghan, Scott, O'Neil, Grant (Lowndes 73), Bollan, O'Halloran (McAnespie 29), Dods, Simao.
Subs Not Used: Connolly, McCluskey, Ferguson.
Goals: Simao 45, McAnespie 78.
Booked: Grant (St Johnstone)
Celtic:
Warner, Boyd , Mahe (McKinlay 83), McNamara, Larsson, O'Donnell, Donnelly, Hannah, Moravcik, Burchill, Riseth.
Subs Not Used: Brattbakk, Jackson, McCondichie, McBride.
Goals: Larsson 51.
Booked: Boyd (Celtic)
Ref: E Martindale (Glasgow).
Att: 9,762
Articles
- Match Report (see below)
Pictures
Stats
| St Johnstone | Celtic | |
| Bookings | 1 | 1 |
| Fouls | 19 | 17 |
| Shots on Target | 6 | 4 |
| Corners | 4 | 4 |
| Offside | 3 | 0 |
Riseth the fall guy as Celtic title defence hits a new low
The Scotsman 16/11/1998
St Johnstone 2 Simao (45), McAnespie (78)
Celtic 1 Larsson (50)
BEFORE this latest Celtic reversal, both Scotland cap Jackie McNamara and the Celtic head coach, Jozef Venglos, had striven to put some perspective on the Scottish champions' stumbling start to the season.
The player pointed out that every season he had been at Parkhead their title chances had been prematurely written off, notably in the September of the last campaign.
And even before Stephane Mahe suffered an ankle injury on Saturday, the Slovak had reasoned that any team in world football would struggle with so many casualties and five of their six best players from last season were missing at McDiarmid Park.
Both sentiments are undoubtedly true, particularly after St Johnstone did their best to give veracity to their manager Sandy Clark's comments that the championship race was already over. Another Celtic defeat against Rangers this weekend would stretch the gap between the Old Firm to 13 points after only 15 games, and already the number of punters wishing to wager on Celtic making it two in a row could be housed comfortably in a sawn-off telephone box.
In a statistic that proves the drift at Celtic Park began before the arrival of the good doctor in the summer, a team that won the League Cup and title last season has now not won consecutive league games since February.
It is an incredible fact for a club of the size of Celtic, and perhaps the biggest indictment of Saturday's game was that an uniniated observer would not have been able to tell which team was fuelled by the proceeds of 60,000 gates and worldwide television appeal and which side only last season returned to the top flight after several seasons in the First Division.
The farcical nature of the winning goal, when the emergency centre-back, Vidar Riseth – one of only two players recruited this term and the second most expensive player on the pitch after Phil O'Donnell -carelessly swung the ball across his own goalmouth and on to the head of Kieran McAnespie, was only the latest of a long line of blunders both on and off the pitch.
That is to take nothing away from Clark's side, who drew level with Celtic on 20 points with an identical record and have now completed an early-season double over the champions following their equally-merited 1-0 win at Parkhead in September.
The Perth club will win more games than they lose this season because they are a well-organised, well-motivated side with a good goalkeeper, two solid centre-backs – Alan Kernaghan was particularly impressive on Saturday – an industrious midfield and an attack that, even without the injured George O'Boyle, offered a pleasing combination of pace and imagination.
Little Miguel Simao, the Portuguese striker who scored his second goal for St Johnstone in seven games, was especially enterprising and promises to develop into a welcome new star of the Scottish game, while, even after Keith O'Halloran was stretchered off with a knee injury which threatens to keep him out for a month, McAnespie was able to cope adequately with his responsibilities.
The limitations of the League Cup finalists, however, were cruelly exposed by a rampaging Rangers last weekend, and the differing performances and results against the Old Firm over the course of the past week put this Saturday's game for Celtic against their oldest rivals at Parkhead into a perspective which even the players and the increasingly forlorn Venglos would view with a certain amount of trepidation.
Clark argued that video analysis of the 7-0 rout proved they had been partially the result of misfortune, implying that the display of his team had not differed greatly in the two contests and that Celtic had slipped below their level.
The well-chronicled problems of recruiting new staff members has meant that the injuries to Jonathan Gould, Alan Stubbs, Marc Rieper and Craig Burley – Paul Lambert was suspended this week -means Venglos has merely had to mend and make do in recent weeks and hope his team are not too far adrift when they emerge from a prolonged period of damage-limitation which has already seen their elimination from three cups.
There was a smidgeon of compensation for Venglos in the highly competent debut of on-loan goalkeeper Tony Warner, who was making his first competitive start after six seasons in the Anfield reserves.
But the absence of Rieper and Stubbs meant the Celtic midfield were unnaturally preoccupied with protecting the soft centre, while Lubomir Moravcik, after his impressive debut in the 6-1 win over Dundee, found that word quickly spreads round the Scottish Premier League and found the muscular Nick Dasovic much less accommodating as he laboured to find space to create behind the front two.
The one goal Celtic did score came from the efforts of their lively front pairing when Phil O'Donnell released the indefatigable Mark Burchill down the left and his cross was stroked home for the equaliser by an unmarked Henrik Larsson.
Indeed, the most colourful aspect of Celtic's display was the post-match analysis of Riseth, whose utterances indicated he is clearly not yet au fait with the Scottish football authorities' intolerance to an honestly-held opinion and their rule of the omerta.
"It was my fault we lost the game but also that of the referee," reads the expurgated version. "It was unbelievable. I have never seen such bad refereeing in my career."
One of several highly-debatable decisions by Eric Martindale led directly to Simao's opener, when Riseth's efforts to usher the ball out for a goal-kick were interpreted as foul play and Kernaghan redirected McAnespie's free-kick into the path of Simao for him to score from six yards out.
There was no questioning the fault for McAnespie's 78th-minute header after Riseth had seemed to have cleared up the confusion created by a Nathan Lowndes surge only to pick out a blue top and willing head with his clearance to the far post.
It was the kind of ridiculous goal that has characterised much of Celtic's season and one which they must not duplicate against Rangers if they are to cut the Ibrox side's lead to a still sizeable seven points.
- Manager Interview
Dr Jo Venglos post match:
“You can't change results. When we were 1-0 down the response from the players was good for 15 or 20 minutes and we scored a goal. Then we lost the kind of goal that sometimes happens. It was not a good one.
"Now the players have to prepare for the game against Rangers. The points situation doesn't matter in these games – the match itself is the important thing and hopefully some of our players will be back."