St. Mirren 1-2 Celtic result, stats and report

Celtic arrived at the SMiSA Stadium carrying ten consecutive Scottish Premiership wins and left with eleven. The scoreline read St. Mirren 1-2 Celtic. Write it down and move on. But if you watched this match, you know the numbers do not tell you the full story. St. Mirren had 60 percent of the ball. St. Mirren had 23 shots to Celtic's 19. St. Mirren created four big chances and missed three of them. Celtic created two big chances and missed one. That is the difference between winning and losing. Execution. End of.

Early Chaos Sets the Tone

The match was barely eight minutes old when Colby Donovan picked up a yellow card for a foul. You can recover from that. What you cannot recover from is what followed. In the 22nd minute, Nikolas Agrafiotis stepped up and converted a penalty for Celtic with a right foot shot. One nil down before the game had found its legs. St. Mirren had given Celtic exactly the foothold they needed.

There was also VAR involvement in the 31st minute, flagging something involving Camilo Duran for St. Mirren. It added to an unsettled first half. Celtic picked up a yellow of their own through Calvin Ramsay in the 37th minute for a foul, so discipline was not clean on either side. But Celtic had the goal. That is what mattered going into the break.

St. Mirren Fight Back and Then Let It Slip

Listen, credit where credit is due. St. Mirren came out for the second half with something about them. In the 51st minute, Liam Scales got on the end of a delivery from Benjamin Nygren and headed home to level it at 1-1. A centre half scoring with a header. The basics of the game. That goal told you St. Mirren had desire and were not lying down.

The thing is, they needed to see it out and push for a winner from a position of strength. They had the ball. They had the crowd. They had the momentum. Then came the 68th minute. Hyun-jun Yang put away a right foot shot to restore Celtic's lead at 2-1. Camilo Duran was involved as the assisting player. Celtic had barely been in the match in that second half and they had walked away with the three points. That is what clinical sides do. St. Mirren were not clinical. Celtic were.

The Numbers That Hurt

St. Mirren had 20 shots from inside the box. Twenty. They converted two of them into goals and missed three big chances. Celtic had eight shots from inside the box and scored once from open play plus the penalty. St. Mirren put eight shots on target. Celtic put six on target. Both goalkeepers made five saves. These are not the statistics of a team that was outclassed. These are the statistics of a team that could not put the ball in the net when it counted.

St. Mirren also put in 27 crosses, with six of them accurate. Celtic managed 12 crosses with two accurate. St. Mirren won 10 corners to Celtic's six. The home side was relentless in trying to break Celtic down. The attitude was there. The desire to compete was there. The accountability for those missed chances, though, that has to sit with the players who had the opportunities and did not take them.

Celtic's Discipline Collapses at the Death

The final minutes produced something that reflected poorly on Celtic. In stoppage time, three Celtic players picked up yellow cards in quick succession. Eseosa Sule was booked in the 90th minute for an argument. Paul Nsio followed for an argument in the 90th minute. Samuel Ramos, who had been substituted on earlier, picked up a yellow card also for an argument. Three bookings for dissent in a matter of minutes. You have won the match. Act like it. That is not the behaviour of a side with standards. Celtic's manager needs to address that. Winning with that kind of carry-on is unacceptable.

Context and Form

Coming into this match, St. Mirren had won three and drawn two of their five most recent Scottish Premiership matches. They were in decent shape. That run included a 1-0 win over Kilmarnock just three days earlier. They were organised and they had momentum. They were not a side there to be rolled over.

The head to head record is also worth noting. In the two previous Scottish Premiership meetings between these sides in the supplied data, Celtic won both. Celtic kept clean sheets in both. This was the first time St. Mirren had scored against Celtic in those meetings. Small progress. Not enough.

The Signal That Came In and the One That Didn't

Verdict

St. Mirren competed. That cannot be questioned. They had more of the ball, more shots, more attacks, and they scored. They created chances that better forwards would have buried. But the thing is, football does not reward effort without execution. Celtic were ruthless twice when it mattered. St. Mirren were not. Celtic took their penalty. Celtic's second goal settled it.

Hyun-jun Yang scoring the winner and then being taken off in the 73rd minute tells you something about how Celtic manage these situations. Job done. Move on. St. Mirren's manager will look at those three big chances missed and understand exactly where the improvement needs to come from. The attitude and the basics were present tonight. The finishing was not. End of.