Callum Davidson was largely happy with his team’s performance as St Johnstone slipped to a 4-1 defeat at home to Celtic as he praised the cinch Premiership champions for their lethal touch in front of goal.
Saints defender Andrew Considine, making his 600th senior appearance, handed Ange Postecoglou’s side the lead with an early own goal at McDiarmid Park before Kyogo Furuhashi doubled the visitors’ lead.
Drey Wright reduced the arrears a few minutes later but the league leaders went in at the break with a two-goal advantage thanks to Aaron Mooy’s delicate chip.
Considine then received his marching orders in second-half stoppage time and David Turnbull converted the subsequent free-kick to seal the 4-1 win.
Davidson, however, was pleased that his side restricted Celtic to 12 shots over the duration of the match and took some solace from the fact that Postecoglou’s men didn’t have it all their own way in Perth.
“It’s a funny one because normally when you play Celtic your goalie is making save after save,” Davidson told Sky Sports. “They have had four shots on target, which shows how clinical they are.
“In the first half I was actually quite pleased. We were 2-0 down then we showed great character to come back. The last goal we lost was disappointing to go into the break 3-1 down.
“In the second half I thought we stuck to the game plan. We tried to do the right things. I thought we passed the ball well and the unit was good, we tried to press them when we could.
“I think you saw a couple of opportunities where we tried to case them and they opened us up. It’s a real catch – I’d love to chase them all game but the score would be 10-1 in the end
“I was disappointed with conceding the goal at the end. But overall I thought the energy levels and the performance levels from most of my boys was really good today. We are playing against a good team.
“The frustration was that we were two goals down and they had only hit two shots. The first was an OG and they hadn’t really opened us up.
“Celtic can open you up time after time and I don’t think they did that. So that’s the hardest part to take – sometimes you can ride your luck a little bit and take your chances.
“I thought they were very clinical today. I have watched a lot of games where they have 25 or 30 shots on goal and score one or two. Today they had less than that and they have scored four.”
