ST JOHNSTONE 1 CELTIC 0
STUTTERING Celtic stumbled to their FOURTH league defeat of 2025 as they toppled in bewildering fashion to rock-bottom St Johnstone at McDiarmid Park this afternoon.
Unbelievable and unacceptable performance for the champions-in-waiting.
They blew the perfect opportunity to seal their fourth successive title at Parkhead next weekend when they required a win against Kilmarnock to make certain of the club’s 55th crown.
Instead, they fumbled and footered their way through a clueless showing where they gave away an early goal and then missed a procession of opportunties to turn the game around.
The worst miss of the lot came from James Forrest in the 81st minute when fellow-subs Luke McCowan and Adam Idah combined before a ball over from the right presented the veteran winger with a clear sight of goal from six yards.
Mystifyingly, he completely fluffed the chance and allowed keeper Andy Fisher to block the effort when he should have burst the net.
That howler just about summed up a puzzling display where the pacesetters lost to the team practically doomed for relegation.
MISS OF THE MATCH…James Forrest fails to beat Andy Fisher with the goal gaping.
The visitors almost scored in 42 seconds, conceded a goal three minutes later and then continued to blunder their way through 95 minutes of an awful showing.
Arne Engels was presented with the early opportunity to get the ball rolling after some good work on the right by Daizen Maeda and Nicolas Kuhn.
The ball dropped at the feet of the midfielder, but his quickfire shot from six yards was straight into the arms of the grateful Fisher.
In the fourth minute, the Hoops’ chronic inability to deal with deadball kicks gifted the lead to the hosts.
Jeffrey Schlupp gave away a free-kick on the right wing after a rash challenge and Graham Carey accepted the award to swing a left-footed effort to the near post.
Latvian international Daniels Balodis’ timing was better than that of any the opposing players and he got in behind Reo Hatate and in front of Schlupp to get his head to the cross to send it past the helpless Viljami Sinisalo.
Celtic’s response was swift and Callum McGregor came close with a 25-yarder that swept just wide of Fisher’s left-hand post.
In the 13th minute, Kuhn’s dithering cost the Hoops the chance of an equaliser.
Fisher was forced to plunge to his left to touch away an angled drive from Maeda and the ball fell to the feet of the German winger.
Kuhn snapped up these sort of opportunities in the first-half of the season, but he hesitated for a moment and that allowed Stephen Duke-McKenna to get in to clear.
It should have been a goal – and the Celt’s expression told its own story.
Eight minutes later, Sinisalo catapulted across his line to push away a snap shot Duke-McKenna which may have been sweeping just wide of the left-hand post, but the Finnish keeper was taking no risks.
On the half-hour mark, Meada was denied by Fisher when the Perth netminder should have been left helpless.
The Japanese speedster latched onto a slack pass from Sam Curtis, drove towards goal, skipped past the keeper, but carried the ball too wide and his effort from a tight angle was scrambled round the post by a relieved Fisher.
Within a minute, the shotstopper was in action again as he touched over a wicked drive from Filipe Jota that was heading for the top right-hand corner.
It was no surprise when Brendan Rodgers sent out Greg Taylor and Yang Hyun-jun to replace Schlupp and Kuhn who had looked off the pace in a worrying first 45 minutes.
Ten minutes after the interval, Hatate was out of luck with a whizzbang effort that shuddered Fisher’s right-hand post with the keeper motionless.
Engels picked out the midfielder with a swift left-wing corner-kick and Hatate fired in a pulverising drive. It looked a goal all the way until it battered off the woodwork and bounced to safety.
In the 61st minute the Japanese ace squandered another opportunity after being teed up by Jota. From 12 yards, he thumped a wayward drive high over the bar and into the crowd.
Moments later, Idah came on for Maeda whose hold-up play had suffered somewhat on a fiery, bumpy surface.
Shortly afterwards, McCowan replaced Engels.
In the 75th minute, Forrest came on for Jota whose parting shot was a 25-yard free-kick that flew wildly over the crossbar.
Celtic continued to surge forward without too much ingenuity against a packed home defence.
Forrest is still looking for his first goal this season and he is unlikely to get a better chance than the one he blew nine minutes from the end.
The dreadful miss typified Celtic’s dire afternoon.
TEAM: Sinisalo; Johnston, Carter-Vickers, Trusty, Schlupp (sub: Taylor 46); Engels (sub: McCowan 66), McGregor, Hatate; Kuhn (sub: Yang 46), Maeda (sub: Idah 61), Jota (sub: Forrest 75).
