| Match Pictures | Matches: 1998 – 1999 | 1998-1999 Pictures |
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Trivia
- Following the signing of Larsson, MacDonald appeared to be having a positive impact on other players. Stubbs said that he might be staying and Stewart Kerr said that he had put is transfer move to Chelsea on hold. The immediate activity was to re-negotiation of Morten Wieghorst’s contract who would be a free agent at the end of the season.
- The club introduced a crèche at Celtic Park for players’ children. This had been a bone of contention in the past between the players and Fergus McCann and had been brought up in the contract dispute with McCann in two seasons.
- Dariusz Adamczuk, Dundee’s Polish international defender was in talks with Celtic over a £100k move at the end of the season. He had also been in contact with Rangers and appeared to be playing a two-edged game.
- A financial agreement was finally brokered with Croatia Zagreb by FIFA. Though the agreement was not divulged by either club it appeared that Viduka would lose his share of the transfer fee which would mean a further £1.5million going to the Croats along with the original Fergus–led payment of £900k.
- The club had an 18 year old Finnish goalkeeper, Kim Eckroos on trial from French side Strasbourg.
- Lambert and Larsson both made it for the game recovering from knocks. Mjallby was out with a thigh injury and Blinker with a thigh strain. Boyd also recovered from a studding on his inner thigh against Motherwell. Stubbs and McNamara were again fit and Donnelly was included in the squad.
Review
St Johnstone had become somewhat of a bogie team for Celtic and their dogged defense frustrated Celtic, then broke to score the only goal of the game. Larsson received a yellow card post match when it was reported he had flicked a Vickie at St Johnstone fans who goaded him as the team left the pitch.
Teams
St Johnstone: Main, Bollan, Griffin, Dods, Weir, Dasovic, Kane, O'Neil, O'Halloran (McQuillan 75), Simao (Preston 78), McAnespie (Grant 90).
Subs Not Used: McCluskey, Robertson.
Goals: O'Halloran 55.
Celtic: Kerr, Boyd , Annoni, McKinlay (Donnelly 46), Riseth, Lambert, Wieghorst (Stubbs 68), McNamara, Burley (Burchill 83), Larsson, Viduka.
Subs Not Used: Brattbakk, Corr.
Booked: Dasovic, Simao, Weir (St Johnstone) Annoni, McNamara, Wieghorst, Burley (Celtic)
Ref: K Clark (Paisley).
Attendance: 10,379
Articles
- Match Report
Saints reduce Celtic to final prayers
Scotland on Sunday 25/04/1999
Andrew Smith AT McDIARMID PARK
St Johnstone 1 Celtic 0
THAT was the 1998/99 Scottish Premier League championship race then. For regardless of any fighting talk that emanates from Celtic Park in the next few days, that fight deserted Jozef Venglos' side at McDiarmid Park yesterday makes it inconceivable that Rangers will be toppled from their perch in the closing weeks of the term.
Indeed, suddenly Dick Advocaat's team could be no more than eight days from securing the title with wins against Aberdeen this evening and Celtic next Sunday, all they require to take them over the finishing line. A measure of Celtic's death row challenge that experienced 20,000 volts in Perth yesterday.
It was appropriate, in terms of both venue and opposition, that an away game against St Johnstone should prove Celtic's undoing in their catch-up campaign. For Sandy Clark's men have taken an astonishing nine points of the 12 up for grabs in the meetings between the sides and their third, and perhaps sweetest success, was again owed to the tactical nous of their manager. Further, Celtic must travel to McDiarmid Park these days expecting some element of history to be made since, in the past seven years, it is a ground that played host to the final games in charge for Billy McNeill and Liam Brady, as well as serving as the curtainraiser of what became the Fergus McCann era.
The home side were worth their win yesterday on the basis of their stickability and a resoluteness in following a containing plan to the letter. The tree trunkesque threesome of Jim Weir, Darren Dods, and Danny Griffen proved obstacles that Celtic's vaunted strike pairing of Henrik Larsson and Mark Viduka came to grief on. While Viduka was listless, Larsson's energy was expended in the business of lost causes, the Swede unable to supply the telling passes or flicks that foxed defences in the manner that has marked out his Player of the Year winning season. His efforts continually had a forced look about them which was in keeping with his team mates' inability to tease openings through finding another gear or an incisive moment. Celtic plodded a St Johnstone dug-in and allowed them to do their worst and the speed with which they broke forward to score the goal which decided the match was in sharp contrast with the heavy leg approach of their opponents. The Perth men had not threatened ahead of Gary Bollan finding himself in possession out on the left flank in the 55th minute. But a cross arrowed in from the defender negated that in allowing Keith O'Halloran to sprint in front of his marker and graze a header beyond Stewart Kerr. And it was Celtic's failure to deliver telling balls into the box from wide areas which Venglos afterwards pinpointed as the reason for his side's first defeat since they lost to Hearts at Tynecastle last December.
But the Slovak, who would not countenance talk of conceding the championship, was guilty of comments that brought his Rangers' counterpart Dick Advocaat into disrepute after his team's recent defeat at McDiarmid, in claiming that Celtic have merely been "unlucky" against the Perth side this time. "I think if you analyse the three games we've lost to St Johnstone, we played well enough in each of them to win," he said. He knows, however, in football that this matters not a jot. In a first period peppered with stoppages for all and sundry, St Johnstone were unwilling to stand back and admire as Celtic set out to boss the encounter.
But though the home side scavenged and put legs, heads and bodies in the way of the shots that rained in from in and around the penalty box, territorially the half belonged to Venglos' side. That being so, though, only twice in the opening stages was the thin blue line strung across the St Johnstone 18-yard box breached. And in each of these occasions home keeper Alan Main was equal to his task. After 14 minutes he contorted his body to block a 20 yard effort rammed in with customary oomph and then appeared to grow two inches to claw his finger on to a fizzy drive from Jackie McNamara just before the half hour mark. His command of his area was such, in fact, that chants of Scotland's No1 blasting from the home support just after the interval could only be said to have been belated. By the time Main again took on the most valuable player role, when he pushed an Alan Stubbs' header over the crossbar in 86 minutes, Celtic looked a spent force. Their dying minutes cavalry surge simply lacked horsepower and St Johnstone were never seriously troubled by Celtic's frantic efforts to make headway against a defence that Clark praised to the hilt in his summing up.
With a grin that belonged on Mr Happy, the St Johnstone boss was right to reflect on a day that wasn't merely all about Celtic's fading championship chances. His side's three-point haul, coupled by defeat for Kilmarnock, has made their prospects of winning through to Europe by virtue of claiming third spot in the league, very real once more.
"We've had a right good day," he beamed. And, as is so often the way in football, what is good for one can be fatal for the other.
- Manager Interview
Jo Venglos post match:
"It was a pity it finished like that."
"Of course I am disappointed for the players. It is very difficult for me to speak after a game like that because the players tried to do their best and worked hard. But we lacked creative movement and surprise passes. The opposition worked hard and defended well and had so many players behind the ball there wasn't enough space."
“We could not score from the half chances we created early on and it got more and more difficult.
"We can't influence Rangers' games, but we will continue to try to win each of our games.
"St Johnstone deserve great credit, but I think it is fair to say that we deserved to take something from the game. They have beaten us three times this season and they have worked hard to do so, but I believe we were good enough to have collected more points from them."
"We didn't create chances as we like to, the final ball was not good today."
"All we can do now is play well in the next game but the rest is now out of our hands.
"I don't know how many games we had gone without defeat and it is a pity that it ended like this.
"But we were missing quality today and I don't want to analyse why."
Pictures
Stats
| St Johnstone | Celtic | |
| Bookings | 3 | 4 |
| Fouls | 17 | 15 |
| Shots on Target | 2 | 7 |
| Corners | 2 | 10 |
| Offside | 3 | 2 |