St Johnstone manager labels Celtic "ruthless" as he leaves Parkhead angry

By David Walton

April 10, 2022

St Johnstone boss Callum Davidson sounded absolutely fuming with his side for failing to lay a glove on “ruthless” Celtic at Parkhead yesterday.

The Hoops ran out 7-0 winners in what was Ange Postecoglou’s biggest ever win as Celtic manager. The result also comes with St Johnstone trying to battle their way out of relegation trouble.

Celtic have now managed 4 wins out of 4 against the Saints, with Davidson’s side failing to even score a goal in any of those and having conceded 13.

Yet even as the Saints boss was happy to hold his hands up to the Hoops’ quality, he sounded furious at how easily he feels his side allowed Celtic to walk all over them.

As quoted by the Courier, Davidson said: “We lost some really poor goals, the second one especially. After that it was backs against the wall. Their confidence was up and you could see that. They brought lots of energy to the game and unfortunately we just couldn’t match them.

“Of course, it’s bitterly disappointing. Unfortunately, our fight is for survival. It’s not in games like this. It’s a really tough place to come and try and get a point, let alone three. Today we were just beaten by the better team. It’s as simple as that.

“We tried to make some changes at half-time but it wasn’t to be. The scoreline is hard to take, I have to say that. We didn’t do the basics well. We didn’t make it difficult for Celtic. That’s really hard to take. We allowed them too much time on the ball and we made it easy for them. That said, I thought they were ruthless for 90 minutes today.”

St Johnstone caught Celtic at a bad time; yesterday’s result would’ve happened to anyone

When Celtic are on the kind of inspired form they were on yesterday, there’s absolutely nothing the likes of St Johnstone can do. In fact, there’s probably nothing any club in Scotland can do. When Celtic are at their best, who’s honestly going to stop them?

Davidson does have a right to be furious with his team of course. After all, they looked totally overwhelmed by the occasion and couldn’t seem to deal with the atmosphere inside a rocking Celtic Park.

And he also has reason to be raging with how they reacted to the opening goal. The truth is they were at Celtic’s mercy throughout the entire 90 minutes. What’s even scarier is that this side had another gear or 2 left in it. We could’ve easily left Parkhead having won by 10 goals or more.

But again, it could’ve been anyone across from the Celtic starting XI yesterday – nobody was stopping them from coming away with a convincing victory. Not with the mood the players were in after their Ibrox victory.

Davidson won’t be the only one to be on the end of a doing off Celtic between now and the end of the season. It’s already happened to several managers this season in fact. Just ask James McPake, Jim Goodwin, Graham Alexander, and Gio van Bronckhorst to name several.

There’s just something special building at Celtic Park. The likes of St Johnstone? There’s nothing they can really do when we’re on that kind of form.

In other news, Rival defender pictured on crutches just 7 days before Celtic clash