Stephen Craigan claims St Mirren players had “fear” at Celtic Park

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BBC pundit and former Motherwell defender Stephen Craigan has claimed that the St Mirren players had “fear” on their faces against Celtic yesterday.

Neil Lennon’s side mauled Jim Goodwin’s sorry Saints 5-0 at Parkhead on a day where everything just clicked for the champions. A hat-trick from Leigh Griffiths was added to by goals from Odsonne Edouard and Callum McGregor. Celtic, for the most part, were just imperious.

In fairness to St Mirren, they did manage to get through the first 15 minutes unscathed as they looked to weather the first half storm. However, Griffiths’ opener led to a barrage of goals coming down on Goodwin’s relegation battlers.

And Craigan, speaking on BBC’s Sportsound program yesterday, believes the first goal struck fear into the St Mirren players as they dreaded what the champions were going to do to them.

“Jim Goodwin’s plan would’ve been to try and contain Celtic and be difficult to play against. But once Celtic got the breakthrough, the St Mirren players started taking a step back. Actually, the first goal came when St Mirren were having their best passage of play.

“But as soon as Griffiths broke the deadlock you could see the fear on the St Mirren player’s faces. They all took a step back, they started trying to protect the space in behind, and it could’ve been anything.

“At times in the second half it was like a training game – Celtic just moving the ball and St Mirren just packing the 18-yard-box.”

Does Parkhead have its domestic fear factor back?

Perhaps not since the invincibles season has Parkhead been so difficult to get a result at.

Yes, we all know what happened on December 29th. However, the players are entitled to a mistake every now and again. Generally, however, our dominance at Celtic Park has been incredible.

Outside of that 2-1 defeat to Rangers, Celtic have won every single game at home domestically this season. Highlights include results such as Celtic 7-0 St Johnstone, Celtic 5-0 Hearts, Celtic 4-0 Livingston, Celtic 5-0 St Mirren, and Celtic 6-0 Ross County.

It hasn’t stopped there either. Celtic won six of their eight European matches at Parkhead this season too. The likes of AIK, Rennes, Lazio, and Cluj were all put to the sword. Granted, defeats to Cluj and Copenhagen are games we would love to get back, but Celtic are making Parkhead a much harder place to come than it was before.

Compare it to last season – Celtic failed to win on five different occasions at home. We were held by Aberdeen and Livingston domestically too. Against teams outside of Rangers in Scotland, we haven’t slipped up once this term and haven’t even looked like doing so either.

So it’s no surprise that Craigan thinks there was a fear-factor in the St Mirren players’ performances yesterday. With the form Celtic are in, why wouldn’t there be? In any case, it’s a fine compliment to the Hoops and our recent form.

Do you think teams fear coming to Parkhead in 2020? Has Neil Lennon brought the thunder back with regards to our home form? Let us know your thoughts in the discussion forum below.