| Match Pictures | Matches: 1997 – 1998 | 1997-1998 Pictures |
Trivia
- Sheffield Wednesday were reported to have made a £10million bid for Alan Stubbs. They were told that he was not for sale at any price.
- Celtic made a £2million bid for Michele Padovano of Juventus but were in strong competition with Crystal Palace for the Italian striker’s signature. Just before this match Celtic were also linked with Guiseppe Signori of Lazio who had dropped down the striker starting order.
- Gordon Marshall continued the exodus on loan from Celtic Park joining St Mirren on loan for a month from 24/10/97. St Mirren had three goalkeepers sidelined with injuries. His debut game for the Buddies wasn’t much fun when they were on the end of a 2-0 defeat at home to Airdrie.
Review
Top of the league and a two-goal gift from St Johnstone.
Teams
Celtic (4-4-2):
Gould ; Boyd , Rieper , Stubbs , Mahe ; McNamara , Burley , Wieghorst , Blinker (O'Donnell, 81); Donnelly , Larsson (Hannah , 86).
Non Used Sub: Annoni
Scorers: Larsson (31); Donnelly (34, pen)
St Johnstone (4-4-2):
Main; McQuillan, Griffin, McCluskey, Preston; O'Halloran (Scott, 56), Dasovic (Kane, 79), Sekerlioglu (O'Boyle, 72), Jenkinson; Grant, O'Neil.
Yellow cards: Sekerlioglu, McQuillan (St Johnstone).
Referee: T Brown (Edinburgh).
Attendance: 48,545.
Articles
- Match Report (see below)
Pictures
Stats
| Celtic | St Johnstone | |
| Bookings | 0 | 2 |
| Fouls | 10 | 12 |
| Shots on target | 9 | 5 |
| Corners | 7 | 5 |
| Offside | 2 | 3 |
Celtic are in it to Wim it
Scotland on Sunday 26/10/1997
Jonathan Northcroft
Celtic 2 St Johnstone 0
MANAGERS often tell us that it is a good sign when their team wins without having played particularly well. This is surely dubious, true in so far as there can never be an occasion when winning is a bad omen. Not playing well equals not playing well, although sometimes it matters less than others.
This was such an occasion for Celtic. Surveying life from the summit of the league, their supporters will not care a jot about this discordant performance yesterday. However, indifference to error is not in the nature of Wim Jansen. He spent much of the afternoon beetroot red making those push-pull arm gestures to his players. It will no doubt be a sweaty week at training.
Nonetheless, the habit Celtic have acquired of securing enough goals to win, then coasting out the remainder of games, might be handy in conserving energy over the season and with regard to the Old Firm double-header coming up. The last time they led the Premier Division was on November 2 last year. That lasted all of 12 days until they were beaten by Rangers.
Jansen was invited to prophesise a longer stay in the post-match press conference but journalists seeking triumphalism were disappointed. "Top of the league then eh Wim?" one began. "Yesh." was all the Dutchman replied, though through a smile.
Still, it has been a remarkable turnaround for the coach. Bottom to top in the space of seven league games and in the final of the Coca-Cola Cup.
For St Johnstone, this ended a useful run which had seen the club rise to joint fourth. There is no doubt that this young, mobile and intelligent team have the attributes to remain in the Premier Division. The centre-back partnership of Stuart McCluskey and Danny Griffin, 19 and 20 respectively, was particularly impressive and though they both scored this was as quiet as Simon Donnelly and Henrik Larsson have been rendered.
"For their age they did an unbelievable job," Paul Sturrock said. "We'll reap the benefit in the months and years to come from the experience they gained today."
Ever honest, Sturrock blamed himself for not playing George O'Boyle and Philip Scott, both returning from injury, from the start.
Celtic under Jansen have been too busy proving themselves to get complacent yet, but maybe their performance was down to a touch of it, at least initially.
They were quite vacant during the first 20 minutes, and St Johnstone monopolised the menacing moments that there were. Celtic's full-backs and the midfield duo of Craig Burley and Morten Wieghorst were pushed up further forward than in previous games and were lackadaisical when possession was ceded. This suited St Johnstone's intention – to play on the break.
A hard-working team, they were quick to counter in numbers when opportunities arose and, in the 13th minute, Attila Sekerlioglu came through from midfield to slap in a header which goalkeeper Jonathan Gould's fingertips denied.
The resultant corner produced a dog's breakfast in the box in which Roddy Grant nudged wide from close in. Jansen came right out to the touchline following this, his arms windmilling, and perched daintily with just a toecap left in the technical area to avoid censure.
This, and a rumble of disquiet from the stands, roused Celtic though it took a goal to truly get them going. Poor Nick Dasovic offered Larsson a gift. Larsson had knocked Donnelly's flick forward more in hope than anything else, but Dasovic played a ball which was not quite a pass-back. Larsson nipped in front of Alan Main and flicked past the goalkeeper.
Rather abruptly Celtic had two. This time it owed more to pattern football than accident. A scientific series of passes ended with Donnelly playing back to Wieghorst playing on to Stephane Mahe on the overlap. John McQuillan tripped the Frenchman inside the box and Donnelly knocked in the penalty.
Main made a stupendous save from Burley from 12 yards but then needed first the post, then Keith O'Hallaron's midriff to keep Celtic out during a spell after the interval.
Dasovic, an eager and admirable Canadian, was a picture in his first full game in seven months. Both strapping, tanned and pig-tailed, he and Sekerlioglu looked more like a soft-metal guitar duo than a midfield pair. Dasovic, a hard-working rhythm man, was a beacon for all honest-jobbing footballers and was partly responsible for the way Celtic foundered in the second half.
A drive from Burley and a volley from O'Boyle were all that really raised blood pressures during the closing spell.
- Manager Interview
Wim Jansen post game:
"It is important for us to keep this confidence."
“It is good to be top of the league but there is a long way to go. The most important thing is that we continue playing well together.
"We had a bad start but you have to play 36 games and during that time you go up and down. It happened with us at the start but now we have started to play better. The only thing now is to continue.
“Our beginning to the St Johnstone match wasn’t normal as we always look to put our opponents under pressure but we were slow to do this.
“After we scored our first goal we started to play a little better and in the opening minutes of the second half we could have gone 4-0 up.
“The score remained 2-0 and you never know what can develop when this is the situation. But we defended solidly and Jonathon pulled off a good save late on.”
Paul Sturrock, St Johnstone manager:
"They were very much St Johnstone-orientated goals."
"Nick Dasovic is 28 or 29 years old and I expect him not to make basic errors like that. Obviously I'd talked to the back four about not diving in around the box and then another experienced player has gone and done that and the game is more or less finished."
"I had a real dilemma today. Some of our more illustrious players had been out of the team with injuries and, because of the team winning, I thought it was only fair to the players who had come in and done well to get an opportunity.
"Later on in the game, when Scott and O'Boyle came on to the park, we did start to get the ball down and make a couple of passes. But we really must blank this game and that is the way the players have got to approach it. As I've said to my players already, it is an eight-team league as far as we are concerned."