2010-12-26: Celtic 2-0 St Johnstone, SPL

Trivia

• Celtic stay 2pts behind Rangers who won 4-1. Huns have game in hand.
• Rotten game and we were lucky with two goals from the two Korean players in injury time. Irony as they will be away on Asian cup duty next week!

Review

Huuuuuuuge cracks papered over by a once-in-a-season strike. The 2nd was nicely done – will this driving forward up the park before the other team has time to re-group ever catch on??

88 minutes of a team who look as though they have just met. No cohesion whatsoever (again). Disorganised, gutless, clueless. Mowbray-eseque at times (how the hell did Murphy get another start? Then – and I'm no fan of Samaras – he STAYS on! Him n McGinn must be SO good at making themselves invisible that even Lennon forgets they are there. That's the only explanation i can think of as to why they had so much game time today.

On the plus side, (apart from the points) Danny M played much better today. Izzy looked a wee bit more like himself, Paddy never gave up (probably out for a month now – has he played a full 90mins yet??), Kapo showed well in a short time, Forster did what he had to do well, Stokes looked the more dangerous player in final third without looking on top form.

And a clean sheet.

That's about it. Really dire, but it's winning that counts.

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Ref: Murray

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Two injury-time goals handed Celtic a last-gasp win in an uninspiring encounter with St Johnstone in Glasgow.
St Johnstone's Collin Samuel almost profited from a Daniel Majstorovic slip-up in the opening seconds.
A series of Paddy McCourt runs failed to find an opening past a resilient, if somewhat unthreatening St Johnstone.
In the dying minutes, Cha Du-Ri drifted inside and blasted past Peter Enckelman, then Ki Sung-Yeung secured the points with a fine strike.
The result means Celtic have ended their poor run of form at home and keeps pressure up on Rangers at the top of the Scottish Premier League table.
Scott Brown started for the first time since October along with Georgios Samaras and Paddy McCourt as Joe Ledley, James Forrest and Gary Hooper were all missing.
St Johnstone were without the suspended duo Jody Morris and Jamie Adams and made three changes, with Alan Maybury, Collin Samuel and Cleveland Taylor coming in.
A mistake by Celtic defender Majstorovic almost opened up a chance for Samuel in the opening seconds of the match, but the Trinidadian's first touch was poor and Forster resumed control.
Georgios Samaras nipped down the wing in the 10th minute, firing the ball across, but Saints keeper Enckelman gathered comfortably.
Niall McGinn flighted in a ball that evaded most of the Celtic front line, but the bouncing ball reached McCourt who nodded for goal, only to send his effort wide of the mark.
Moments later, Murphy turned on the ball 25 yards out and fired for goal, but Enckelman dived to his left and made the save.
As the half hour mark approached, Parkin blasted in a shot from distance that sailed wide, then McCourt threatened at the other end with a shot of his own.
Celtic enjoyed a brief spell of pressure towards the end of the first half, but failed to create the chances necessary to break the stalemate.
After the interval, the hosts looked to have more appetite about their play and McCourt instantly went on one of his trademark runs, but sent the final ball wide of the target.
Murphy warmed the hands of Enckelman with a powerful drive from 18 yards out, but the Finn was up to the task.
Samaras was felled on the edge of the Saints penalty area by Alan Maybury as the hour mark approached, and earned himself a yellow card for his trouble, but Ki failed to make anything of the resulting free-kick.
A cross from Anthony Stokes was cleared by Maybury as the hosts started to desperately search for an unlikely opener.
A McCourt run led to a commotion in the St Johnstone penalty area, but the danger was cleared and the resulting corner was disappointingly flat.
In the final 10 minutes of the match, Murphy appeared to be denied a penalty before firing in a shot towards the St Johnstone goal, but referee Calum Murray was having none of it.

Ki fired a shot wide of the St Johnstone goal, then McGinn went down under a challenge in the visitors' penalty area as the match drew to a close, but, again, Murray waved it away.
Substitute Olivier Kapo had the home fans on their feet in the dying minutes when he kneed the ball goal-bound, only to strike the St Johnstone crossbar. In the first minute of stoppage time, Cha cut inside after powering down the right wing and blasted past Enckelman with a quality finish to snatch all three points for the hosts. The victory was complete when Ki finished off a fine solo run with a powerful drive, much to the relief of the home fans who had remained for the three minutes of added on time. Story from BBC SPORT:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/sport1/hi/football/scot_prem/9318611.stm

Published: 2010/12/24 10:14:50 GMT

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