St. Johnstone 0-1 Celtic result, stats and report

Celtic won. That is the only thing that matters in the end. But if you watched this match at McDiarmid Park on Wednesday night and you judged it purely on what happened on the pitch, you would have walked away thinking the wrong team took the three points. That is not a comfortable thing to say. But it is the truth.

The Goal That Settled It

Mika Baur put Celtic ahead on 52 minutes. Right foot, clinical finish, assisted by Haissem Hassan. That was the difference between the two sides. One moment of quality in a match St. Johnstone largely controlled. Celtic took their chance. St. Johnstone did not take theirs. End of.

The thing is, the basics of this game were not kind to Celtic. They had 40 per cent possession. They had nine shots in total to St. Johnstone's 15. They had three shots on target to St. Johnstone's nine. Their goalkeeper made eight saves. Eight. When your goalkeeper is the best player on the pitch by a distance, you have not deserved to win a football match. You have been rescued by one.

St. Johnstone's Night of Frustration

Listen, I have seen plenty of performances where a team works hard and gets beaten fair and square. This was not one of them. St. Johnstone were the dominant side for large stretches of this game. They had 60 per cent of the ball. They created five big chances. They missed four of them. That is the difference. Not desire. Not attitude. Not effort. Finishing.

Eleven corners to Celtic's two. Thirty-five total crosses to Celtic's 20, with nine of those accurate. Fifty duels won to Celtic's 39. On almost every measure of competitive output, St. Johnstone matched or exceeded their opponents. They pressed. They competed. They created. And they walked off with nothing.

That is a brutal reality of football at this level. Standards have to be ruthless in front of goal. You get chances against a side like Celtic and you do not put them away, you lose the match. There is no other explanation required. Four big chances missed. That number is unacceptable if you want three points from a game like this.

Celtic's Quality When It Mattered

I will not pretend Celtic were poor. They were not. They were disciplined, organised, and efficient. Forty per cent possession is not a sign of weakness when you are winning a match 1-0. It is a sign that your team knows exactly what it is doing. They sat in. They absorbed. They hit when the opening arrived.

Baur's goal was the product of patience and precision. Hassan's involvement as the provider was important. Celtic's 80 per cent dribble success rate tells you they kept the ball when they needed to keep it. Their passing accuracy of 78 per cent was slightly below St. Johnstone's 90, but in the context of how little they had the ball, that is not a crisis. They managed the match. They got the win.

Substitutions played their part late on. James Forrest came on in the 73rd minute. Kieran Tierney arrived at 87 minutes, replacing the booked Liam Scales. Celtic were managing the game in the closing stages, and they managed it well enough.

The Bookings and the Cards

The match had an edge to it. St. Johnstone picked up yellow cards through Josh Campbell, for a foul at 55 minutes, and Reece McAlear at 69 minutes. Celtic's Liam Scales was booked for a foul at 82 minutes before being withdrawn five minutes later. Mika Baur, the Celtic goalscorer, then collected a card deep into stoppage time for handball. Four yellow cards across the two sides. Competitive but not out of control.

Campbell was subbed off at 74 minutes shortly after his booking, replaced by Danny Schmidt. St. Johnstone made a double change at 63 minutes, bringing on R. Paton and Sam Stanton, and then Kai Fotheringham joined the fray at 74. The changes did not alter the outcome. When you are chasing a Celtic side that defends as a unit, throwing bodies forward is not always the answer. But St. Johnstone had no choice.

Celtic's Form Is a Statement

Celtic came into this match having won all five of their previous Scottish Premiership matches in this rolling sample, scoring 13 goals and conceding three. That is a team in form. That is a team with confidence running through it. Tonight they were made to work harder than they might have expected, but they found a way. That is what good sides do.

What This Result Means

Celtic take the three points and maintain their winning momentum. St. Johnstone will have every right to feel aggrieved. The goalkeeper situation alone tells you the story. Eight saves from the Celtic keeper against three from St. Johnstone's. When you force eight saves and score zero goals, you have let yourself down in the one area that decides matches.

There were two injuries recorded during the game, one on each side. Neither appears to have been the decisive factor in the outcome.

St. Johnstone's manager will have watched his side compete with real desire. The attitude was not the problem tonight. The execution of the basics in front of goal was the problem. You do not get points for corners. You do not get points for shots on target. You get points for goals. Celtic scored one. St. Johnstone scored none. That is the only column that counts.

Celtic win 1-0. Baur with the goal. St. Johnstone with the moral victory and absolutely nothing else to show for a Wednesday night's work.