Celtic Edge Past St Johnstone Despite Rotated Squad

Martin O’Neill left Perth with three points and a furrowed brow.

Celtic’s 100% league record remains intact – six wins from six – but this was no swaggering champion’s performance. A heavily rotated side edged past St Johnstone thanks to Mika Baur’s first goal for the club, yet O’Neill walked away with more questions than answers about his reshaped team.

Rotation, risk and a restless manager

O’Neill did not just tweak. He tore up the template.

On-loan Wolves goalkeeper Sam Johnstone was handed his debut. Oliver Sorensen was thrown in for a first Celtic start in midfield. Dane Murray came in at centre-back. Sebastian Tounekti and Kasper Hogh were recalled to the front line.

For a manager openly “juggling” players and positions, this felt like the night to learn something concrete about his wider squad. He didn’t get that clarity.

“I’m not sure what to make of it, really,” he admitted to BBC Sport Scotland, later telling Sky Sports that Celtic are “still well short of it”. The performance backed him up. Celtic laboured, huffed, then finally found a moment from Baur early in the second half – and never truly put the game away.

All this comes with a huge week looming: Ferencvaros at home in the Europa League on Thursday, bookended by a Premier Sports Cup tie against Rangers on Sunday and a league meeting with the same opponents the following weekend. It is exactly the kind of run that exposes any soft spots.

O’Neill knows it. He also made clear that McDiarmid Park, for all the glamour ahead, mattered most in the context of the title defence. That only sharpened the focus on his team selection.

Duran dropped – and quickly missed

Of the five changes, one stood out like a flashing light. Camilo Duran, the man who has exploded into life in a Celtic shirt, started on the bench.

All the pre-match talk revolved around Duran and Hogh. Would they play as a front two? Would Duran be pushed wide? Almost nobody considered the possibility that the Colombian would be left out entirely.

By full-time, it felt safe to assume O’Neill will not be tempted to repeat the experiment.

“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 his side failed to add to Baur’s strike despite cranking up the pressure.

Duran’s impact this season has been obvious. His manager called him “class”, pointing out that he looked tired on Saturday, hardly a shock given the volume of work he does with and without the ball. Only Daizen Maeda, now departed, has pressed more relentlessly under O’Neill.

“I wanted to try and see if we could do without him,” O’Neill said. “And the answer is probably not.”

That is the tightrope. Celtic have found another diamond, but O’Neill cannot afford his attack to become as reliant on Duran as it once was on Maeda.

Hogh’s struggle and the missing service

If Duran is all energy and invention, Hogh is something else entirely. A penalty-box predator. A poacher who lives on service.

He got almost none of it.

With the wings misfiring, the Dane spent most of the first half starved of involvement, touching the ball just twice inside the box before the break. Celtic’s wide play was so flat that even when Hogh peeled away from defenders, the pass rarely came.

O’Neill did not hang his striker out to dry, but he made a pointed observation. “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 truth sat somewhere in the middle. Hogh needed more from those around him. He also needed to find ways to influence a game that was drifting past him.

The absence of Yang Hyun-jun, who has sparkled at the start of the season, only deepened the attacking malaise. The contrast between him and Tounekti was stark.

Former Scotland forward James McFadden, on Sky Sports duty, labelled Tounekti’s first-half display and decision-making “safe”. The winger repeatedly drifted inside, rarely attacked on the outside and constantly received the ball in the defender’s eyeline.

“He likes to come inside, that’s pretty positive until the last part,” McFadden said, highlighting how Tounekti’s starting positions made life easier for St Johnstone’s back line. Quick feet, sharp movement, but little risk. It left Hogh, again and again, throwing his arms out in frustration as runs went ignored.

St Johnstone ask questions, Celtic offer few answers

Celtic’s disjointedness might have been easier to excuse if St Johnstone had simply parked the bus. They did not.

They made four changes of their own. Joe Cotterill was handed a first start and almost marked it with a goal, forcing Johnstone into a superb save. On-loan Hibs midfielder Josh Campbell also made his debut, adding bite and energy in the middle.

Celtic, who looked like a side with five changes, found no real rhythm in the first half. Sorensen, the great unknown in O’Neill’s XI, did little to change that perception. The manager had admitted before kick-off that he “had no idea” what the midfielder could offer. Ninety minutes later, he may still be wondering, as the game largely passed the new man by.

The boldness of leaving both Duran and Benjamin Nygren on the bench only truly paid off in one sense: they got a breather before Rangers. Nygren replaced Sorensen with just over 20 minutes left, Duran entered late, and Celtic saw the game out without adding to Baur’s goal.

It was enough. Barely. But enough.

A perfect record that doesn’t feel perfect

Strip it back and the numbers are pristine. Six league games. Six wins. Top of the table. A manager who keeps talking about players needing weeks to get “up to speed”, yet still emerging unscathed.

“I know the results have been fine, really fine,” O’Neill said. “But when we get players up to speed, that’ll be great. 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 leading the pack.

But as a season-defining run of fixtures looms into view, the question is no longer about results. It is about whether this evolving, rotating, occasionally laboured Celtic side can find their true level when the stakes spike.

The wins keep coming. Now they have to start convincing.