In the Scottish Premiership, Celtic achieved an impressive 6-0 victory over St Johnstone, marking their ninth consecutive win this season, with the team’s forward, Kyogo Furuhashi, contributing two goals. The intense game took place in Perth, with Furuhashi scoring the first two halves, either side of Paulo Bernardo’s final ten-minute punch in the first half.
The remainder of Celtic’s scoring brigade included its own Callum McGregor, who nailed a long-range goal, his fourth this year, and Daizen Maeda on the scoreboard, following a controversially revoked first-half attempt. Finally, Celtic’s Adam Idah, claimed the final score. The winning spree for Brendan Rodgers’ team, sees them with a streak of 17 consecutive victories from last season, during which they netted 33 goals.
Celtic’s impeccable defence, led by Auston Trusty instead of injured Cameron Carter-Vickers, has also maintained a clean sheet in their sixth Scottish Premiership match this season. The next item on the Celtic agenda is a challenging Champions League encounter against Borussia Dortmund in Germany.
From the initial stage of the match against St Johnstone, Celtic regularly set Furuhashi up by persistently penetrating the deeply-planted Saints’ defence. Despite an early obstruction from goalkeeper Ross Sinclair, Furuhashi, and Maeda scoring in the 26th minute was turned around by referee Don Robertson due to an injury to the Saints’ Graham Carey believed to be inadvertently caused by Celtic’s Auston Trusty.
On top of this, Saints’ captain Kyle Cameron had to be replaced by Aaron Essel who struggled to acclimatise to the match, giving Celtic a further advantage. Furuhashi’s impressive finishing moves were made apparent when he bypassed young Essel after teammate Nicolas Kuhn set him up perfectly during an advantageous break.
The victors amplified their advantage to two goals on the 43rd minute mark, following a combined play between nine members of the team. The sequence commenced with Kasper Schmeichel’s goal-kick and culminated with Bernardo executing a magnificent shot from a distance of 22 yards into the net’s corner, post Furuhashi’s assist.
Subsequently, Furuhashi managed to head a perfect cross from Greg Taylor into the net by playing one-touch football and scored a third goal for the team. Taylor nearly scored himself in the added minutes of the first half, only to be substituted during the halftime by Alex Valle.
Early into the second half, roughly after a minute and a half, Furuhashi took yet another shot. However, they were outsmarted by McGregor’s 25-yard shot into the net after receiving a swift pass from Kuhn just after a corner kick.
Soon after, Sinclair blocked a brilliant assist by Engels towards Kuhn. Maeda missed a potential goal opportunity only to score later in the 72nd minute, heading the ball fiercely into the upper net, courtesy of Bernardo’s brilliant cross.
Schmeichel’s excellent second-half save from Essel near the post secured his clean sheet. During the 83rd minute, the team scored their sixth goal following a clever pass by Republic of Ireland’s international striker, Idah, to Valle who then neatly back-heeled the ball to Luke McCowan.
In the end, McCowan’s shot hit the pole’s inside and forced a good save, only moments before the final whistle was blown, concluding an unfortunate day for St Johnstone’s interim manager, Andy Kirk, and his squad.