Celtic ended 2024 with an impressive win and performance against St Johnstone in the final Scottish Premiership game of the year.
Brendan Rodgers made five changes to his Celtic team as the Hoops boss juggled his squad ahead of the big Glasgow Derby match against Rangers at Ibrox.
Those changes made no difference to the level of performance as Celtic battered a resilient St Johnstone after goals from Kyogo Furuhashi (2), Nicolas Kuhn and Daizen Maeda sealed the three points.
Brendan Rodgers was delighted with his Celtic players as he ended the year unbeaten at Celtic Park but that reaction was overshadowed by Saints boss, Simo Valakari as he talked up the Parkhead team’s performance.
Simo Valakari was blown away by Celtic’s ‘attitude and desire’ vs St Johnstone
Valakari told St Johnstone TV, “A tough place. We knew it was a tough place. But as always, we came here to compete again.
“Our players, they gave everything. But we all know that in these kinds of games, we need to play almost a perfect game, and often needs to be not even close to their best standard.
“We have a lot of our own problems we need to fix it but I need to use this little moment well as well to say as well, how well Celtic played.
“And what I mean, how well they played. The attitude and desire to do the right things. The game was played for 89 minutes. 4-0 they are winning. It would be so easy to say, ‘Okay, I don’t need to use this’.
“No, they came on us, they didn’t let us breathe, they pressed us. they wanted to score more goals. And that’s the mindset of champions.”
Simo Valakari can’t believe the ‘level’ of Celtic’s ‘top players’ vs St Johnstone
“And that’s why I hope, very first hand, we felt it today,” continued Valakari, “How it needs to be, and that’s why we need to work towards it.
“And I said, we have a lot of problems we need to fix but that’s the level, how the top players do it. And they do it every time. They are not doing the first half and they stop the second half.
“They are not doing this game and the next game. And that’s exactly what we need to start doing. Find this consistency.”
Celtic are now sitting pretty at the top of the Scottish Premiership table with a 14-point advantage over Rangers.
Philippe Clement’s side dropped more points against Motherwell as they came back from 2-0 to earn a point but, in truth, they very nearly lost again before facing Celtic.
With the New Year derby just three days away, Celtic head to Ibrox full of confidence to face a Rangers team under severe pressure.
If the Hoops can muster another Ibrox win, Celtic will pile on the misery and end Rangers’ slim title hopes with half a season still to play.
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