Celtic Secures Win but Martin O’Neill Faces Questions
Martin O’Neill left Perth with three points and a furrowed brow.
Celtic’s 100% start in the Scottish Premiership remains intact – six wins from six – but this was no swaggering stroll from the champions. It was a grind, decided by Mika Baur’s first goal for the club, and it left O’Neill with more questions than answers about a squad he is still trying to bend into shape.
A night of experiments and unease
O’Neill shuffled his pack heavily at McDiarmid Park. On-loan Wolves goalkeeper Sam Johnstone came in for his debut. Oliver Sorensen was handed a first Celtic start in midfield. Dane Murray was given a rare outing at centre-back. Sebastian Tounekti and Kasper Hogh were recalled to the front line.
If this was supposed to offer clarity, it did the opposite.
"I'm not sure what to make of it, really," O’Neill admitted to BBC Sport Scotland after the 1-0 win. To Sky Sports, he was even blunter: "We're still well short of it."
That is not what you expect to hear from a manager whose team has yet to drop a point. But the calendar explains the tension. Celtic open their Europa League campaign at home to Ferencvaros next Thursday, wedged between back-to-back clashes with Rangers – first in the Premier Sports Cup on Sunday, then in the league a week later. It is a season-defining stretch, arriving while O’Neill still feels he is “juggling” players and positions.
He insisted the trip to St Johnstone came first in his thinking, that the title defence could not be compromised. Which made his five changes feel even more daring. Or reckless.
Duran dropped – and answer delivered
The most striking call was the one name missing from the teamsheet.
Camilo Duran, electric since arriving at Celtic, started on the bench. All the pre-match talk had been about whether Duran would play alongside Hogh or be pushed wide again. Almost nobody factored in the possibility of him sitting out altogether.
By full-time, that felt like a mistake O’Neill will not repeat in a hurry.
"Our main man only came on in the last 10 or 15 minutes, so it gives you food for thought," the Northern Irishman said after Celtic failed to build on Baur’s early second-half strike, despite a late surge.
Duran has been “class”, in O’Neill’s words. The manager felt he had looked tired at the weekend, hardly a shock given the volume of work he gets through with and without the ball. Only Daizen Maeda, now gone, has closed down opponents with more relentlessness in O’Neill’s time.
"So, I wanted to try and see if we could do without him," O’Neill said. "And the answer is probably not."
That line will ring in his ears as the fixtures pile up. Duran is a jewel, but Celtic know too well the dangers of leaning too heavily on one forward, as they once did with Maeda. The balance between protecting him and overusing him is already delicate.
Hogh isolated, service starved
If Duran is Celtic’s livewire, Hogh is the penalty-box predator. A poacher, not a presser. He needed crosses, cut-backs, chaos.
He got scraps.
With the supply from wide areas badly off-key, Hogh endured a miserable first half. He touched the ball only twice in the box before the interval. His movement was there, the peeling away from defenders, the clever runs across the line – but the passes never came.
O’Neill did not let his record signing off the hook entirely. "You just can't put the ball on a plate for people," he told Sky Sports. "They have to make room for themselves in the penalty box to try and score a goal."
The reality, though, was that Celtic’s wing play simply did not match their centre-forward’s instincts.
Yang Hyun-jun’s absence hurt. The South Korean has lit up the early weeks of the season, and the contrast with Tounekti on the right flank was brutal. James McFadden, watching on for Sky Sports, branded the Norwegian’s display and decision-making “safe” at half-time.
"He likes to come inside, that's pretty positive until the last part," McFadden said. The problem, he argued, lay in Tounekti’s starting positions and his reluctance to attack on the outside. Always in the defender’s eyeline. Always funnelled back into traffic. Quick feet, sharp turns, but little jeopardy.
Time and again, Hogh spun into space, only to see the ball recycled inside or delayed. His frustration grew as the half wore on, his gestures to team-mates telling their own story.
St Johnstone seize their chance to test Celtic
Celtic’s disjointedness might have been excused if St Johnstone had turned up as passive bystanders. They did not.
They made four changes of their own, including a first start for Joe Cotterill and a debut for on-loan Hibs midfielder Josh Campbell. Cotterill came closest, drawing a superb save from Johnstone that justified the goalkeeper’s selection on the night.
This was not a home side cowed by the champions. They sensed uncertainty and pushed, especially when Celtic’s new-look midfield failed to control the tempo.
Sorensen, at the heart of that experiment, never imposed himself. Pre-match, O’Neill had admitted he "had no idea" what the midfielder could offer. Ninety minutes later, he may still be none the wiser. The game seemed to drift around Sorensen, rather than through him.
Baur strikes, but the doubts linger
The breakthrough, when it came early in the second half, did not trigger a procession. It merely took the edge off the anxiety.
Baur’s goal, his first in Celtic colours, should have opened the floodgates as the champions finally raised the tempo. Instead, it stood alone. Celtic huffed, pressed higher, and brought on their big guns, but the second goal never arrived.
Benjamin Nygren joined Duran off the bench with just over 20 minutes to go, another attacking threat held back in the name of rotation. It was a bold move from O’Neill to leave both on the sidelines at kick-off. In the end, the gamble just about paid off: three points banked, two key forwards slightly fresher for Rangers.
Yet the manager’s own words betrayed the unease behind the win.
"I know the results have been fine, really fine, but when we get players up to speed, that'll be great," he said. "I think that'll take a few weeks for players. In the meantime, the most important thing is to try and keep your head above water."
Celtic are not just above water. They are top of the league with a perfect record. But with a derby double and Europe looming, O’Neill knows that performances like this one in Perth will not be enough on their own.
The question now is simple: can he turn this labouring, shape-shifting side into something ruthless before the season’s biggest tests arrive in quickfire succession?
