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The 2-1 scoreline would suggest that Celts made heavy weather of beating St Johnstone but in actual fact they squandered a lot of chances and could have won by a much bigger margin. St Johnstone opened the scoring when poor marking by Tebily allowed Darren Dods to head unchallenged over Douglas into the net. Minutes later Moravcik saw a great run by Lambert. Paul carried the ball forward and played it to Larsson inside the box. Henrik's turn and strike was perfection and the ball soared into the net across the keeper. A free kick from Thomson from 40 yards led to the next goal. His accurate shot went over the wall and took a bounce which the keeper misjudged and let bounce over him into the net. The unfortunate young keeper was to make another couple of mistakes in the game, notabley one in which he competely missed a passback he tried to kick clear. He was however St Johnstone's hero on many occasion, punching away crosses and making a fantastic one-handed save from a Thomson shot in the second half. Celtic played a lot of good football in the game with Larsson coming close with an ambitious overhead kick in the first half. Hartson shot just wide in the second half and McNamara caused a lot of problems for Saints with his trickery down the right. St Johnstone did come into the game for a period in the second half and had one really good chance which Rab Douglas did well to save. In the end it was the Celtic fans that were glad to hear the final whistle as the team failed to get the killer third goal. Man of the match: Paul LambertCELTIC (3-5-2): Douglas; Mjallby, Valgaeren, Tebily; McNamara, Petrov, Lambert, Moravcik (Petta 69), Thompson; Larsson, Hartson Subs: Gould, Maloney, Smith, Sylla ST JOHNSTONE (4-4-2):Dods, McCluskey, Falconer; Murray, Hartley, Kane (Jones 79), Lynch, McCullcoh (McClune 64); Russell (Connolly 76), Djebali |