2011-12-18: St Johnstone 0-2 Celtic, SPL

Match Pictures | Matches: 2011 – 2012 | 2011-2012 Pictures

Trivia

• Rangers remain 4pts ahead they won with a dodgey 2-0 win v Inv Caley at home.
• Talk obsessed following unnecessary "f*** uefa" banner at Udinese match. Possible repercussions.
• Danny M has possible fractured cheekbone, possibly out for 4-6 weeks. Has gone through his best spell of late as well.

Review

(Jungle G of KDS)
Job done, comfortably in the end.

Wee bit apprehensive up till hour mark as we were kinda flat in attack, but has to be said, Forster barely got his gloves dirty. In second half when called upon he was absolutely solid.

Goals when they came were an opportunistic stab from Hooper after missing a very good chance earlier (Udinese all over again) and then a devastating counter attack in which Forrest and Samaras made the right decisions, every time, for Ki to put eventually away from close range. Honourary assist goes to Saints player daft enough to keep ball in play for us with a backheel when it was running out just yards from our own corner flag. Ten seconds later, game over.

Once the confidence began flowing through the ranks could’ve scored few more. 4-0 over the course wouldn’t have flattered us.

Keeps up a fantastic run of form but which will only count for something if we get all three points on the 28th. Eye on the prize, bhoys. And still think our best XI would be fairly unrecognisable from this one.

Downside the injury to Dan. Normally I’d look upon it as no more than a welcome opportunity for his alternative but with that being Rogne who is also a bit of a sicknote, no doubt NL would have preferred continuity going into the derby. In meantime wait to see how long a fractured cheekbone keeps him out and whether he gets to come back early looking even scarier with a funky mask.

Ref – generally poor and his linesman came up with easily the most ridiculous offside call of the season yet for Hooper. Compare and contrast with ICT’s wrongly disallowed goal at aye’broke yesterday.

And lastly on a sidenote, love it how you can read Tony Hamilton tweeting injury updates on KDS seconds after he publishes, then five, ten minutes later the BBC announce that “according to a Celtic insider…” they can reveal Dan’s injury.

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St Johnstone 0 Celtic 2: match report

telegraph
Roddy Forsyth

By Roddy Forsyth

7:41PM GMT 18 Dec 2011

Celtic held fast to Rangers’ coattails when they shook off a diligent St Johnstone team to close within four points of their bitter rivals with only one fixture apiece for the Glasgow pair to play prior to next week’s Old Firm derby at Parkhead.

The travelling Celtic support had to wait for their anticipated pleasures but were duly rewarded after the break with two goals in four minutes that put the outcome beyond doubt, the first a typically predatory effort by Gary Hooper and the second a splendid flowing move from one end of the field to the other, finished by Ki Sung-Yeung.

However, Celtic suffered a blow with the loss of Daniel Majstorovic, who suffered a fractured cheekbone and also eye socket damage after a first-half collision with David Robertson – both men had to leave the field – and who is likely to be out for up to six weeks.

A couple of months ago this would have been a much more troublesome engagement for Celtic, who repeatedly found life difficult after Europa League ties – indeed they suffered their first domestic defeat against St Johnstone after their first outing in the tournament qualifiers in August.

Now, though, confidence has replaced brittleness for Neil Lennon’s squad and, while they might have experienced a degree of sluggishness in the first 45 minutes after their efforts in the drawn Europa League tie with Udinese in Italy on Thursday night, they imposed their will decisively before the proceedings could become anxious.

Like Udinese, St Johnstone were level with Celtic at half-time, but unlike the team who were joint top of Serie A, the Perth players had kept a clean sheet by the same stage of yesterday’s proceedings. That represented a considerable improvement in performance from their consecutive home defeats by Motherwell and Aberdeen which put an end to Steve Lomas’s honeymoon period as successor to Derek McInnes in charge at McDiarmid Park.

“I’m learning to trust them as players when they face a situation like that, which is quite common for us in the SPL,” said Lennon afterwards. “We asked them for a little more at half-time and we made our set pieces better – that got us our first goal – and the second was a wonderful team effort which really thrilled me.

“I thought Georgios Samaras had another exceptional game for us – defenders at all levels find him a real problem at the moment – but it’s a real setback for us to lose Daniel Majstorovic, who’s been on a roll lately. It’s a big blow.”

That comfort – measured by Celtic’s control of two-thirds of the possession – found its tangible expression after an hour, following the most competitive spell of the contest.

On the correct assumption that Celtic would raise the tempo after the break, St Johnstone tried the same tactic and almost caught their opponents short at the back from the restart but James Forrest displayed a less heralded aspect of his game when he spotted the gap which Chris Millar hoped to exploit and intercepted the cross meant for the Perth midfielder with a header at the expense of a corner kick.

It was from a corner at the other end that the breakthrough arrived. Charlie Mulgrew’s delivery was disputed by Marcus Haber and Victor Wanyama at the near post and when the ball broke from the pair it fell to Hooper, who thrashed his shot home.

There was always the feeling that if Celtic got one goal they would get more and, sure enough, the second arrived swiftly after a wonderfully fluent break stitched together by Forrest and Samaras and tapped home by Ki.

Match details

St Johnstone (4-5-1): Enckelman; Mackay, Anderson, McCracken, Maybury; Moon; Millar, Robertson (Finnigan 39), Davidson, Craig (Gibson 79); Haber. Subs: Mannus (g), Parkin, Durnan, McIntosh, Gray. Booked: Craig. Moon, Mackay.

Celtic (4-4-2): Forster; Cha, Majstorovic (Rogne 31), Wanyama, Mulgrew; Forrest, Brown, Kayal (McGeouch 77), Ki; Hooper (Bangura 86), Samaras. Subs: Zalukas (g), Wilson, Blackman, Twardzik. Booked: Kayal.

Referee: E Morris.

Page last updated at 16:53 GMT, Sunday, 18 December 2011 By Clive Lindsay
BBC Scotland Celtic overpowered St Johnstone with two second-half goals enough to earn a win that keeps the pressure on Scottish Premier League leaders Rangers.
A superb save from Saints goalkeeper Peter Enckelman denied Gary Hooper from the best chance of the first half.
But Hooper was not to be denied again and he prodded home from close range following a 60th-minute corner.
Ki Sung-Yeung fired in after a quick break four minutes later to reduce the gap with Rangers to four points.
Celtic manager Neil Lennon's victory in his head-to-head with former Northern Ireland team-mate Steve Lomas meant his side secured a seventh straight league win and condemned Saints to a third consecutive home defeat.
Lennon unsurprisingly stuck with the same starting line-up that gave Serie A high-flyers Udinese a fright in the Europa League in midweek. Hooper (left) opened the scoring for Celtic in Perth With Anthony Stokes out injured, Hooper and Georgios Samaras continued their partnership up front and both were quickly involved.
A Hooper header looped wide, while Enckelman had to beat away a powerful long-range effort from the in-form Greece international.
Saints were denied the services of former Scotland left-back Callum Davidson through illness and the continued absence of injured strike duo Francisco Sandaza and Cillian Sheridan meant Marcus Haber was left on his own up front.
Lomas played safe by dropping Sam Parkin to the bench and packing his midfield with the introduction of David Robertson and Kevin Moon.
Robertson was left dazed following a hefty challenge by Daniel Majstorovic after 30 minutes.
However, it was the Celtic defender who came off worse and immediately went off injured sporting what looked like a rapidly developing black eye after heading the back of the midfielder's skull.
Before the Swede could be replaced with Thomas Rogne, Enckelman had denied Hooper with a superb, instinctive one-handed save following the striker's shot from point-blank range.
Robertson only lasted another eight minutes and was replaced by Carl Finnigan, the former Falkirk forward giving the Perth side some additional threat up front.
Haber's pace threatened early on, but he had become an increasingly isolated figure as Celtic dominated possession.
However, a curling Mulgrew free-kick and a Victor Wanyama back-header that flew into the arms of Enckelman were the only other efforts on target as the first half ended goalless.
Saints had failed to create a single chance during the first 45 minutes but forced two quick corners after the break and Dave Mackay, who scored their winner against Celtic in Glasgow, forced goalkeeper Fraser Forster into a good near-post save with a low drive from just outside the box.
Celtic winger James Forrest, virtually anonymous in the first half, also burst into life but should have done better than volley over from eight yards.
Saints had come out with more attacking intent, but that only presented Celtic with more space to exploit and Enckelman did well to beat away a Hooper shot on the turn from a Scott Brown cross.
The pressure eventually told and Hooper stabbed the ball over the line from four yards after a goalmouth scramble resulting from an inswinging corner.
Saints were presented with an immediate chance to equalise, but when Liam Craig's free-kick on the edge of the box was charged down, Celtic broke clear to score again.
Forrest played a one-two with Samaras before firing a low ball across the face of goal for Ki to fire home from 12 yards off the despairing Enckelman.
Samaras mis-hit in front of goal, but Saints also went close to pulling a goal back when Haber pounced on a Wanyama mistake and forced Forster into a near-post save.