Nadir Ciftci celebrates with teammates after scoring the first goal for Celtic against St Johnstone yesterday. (Action Images via Reuters)
AFP/Glasgow
Nadir Ciftci grabbed a double as Celtic restored their four-point advantage at the top of the Scottish Premiership with a 3-0 victory away to St Johnstone yesterday.
St Johnstone striker Michael O’Halloran caused Celtic some early problems before Turkish striker Ciftci made the most of a rare start to fire home the opener from a 35th-minute corner.
The home side missed good chances to equalise before the break and were made to pay for their profligacy in front of goal when Dedryck Boyata bulleted home Celtic’s second in the 49th minute.
Ciftci doubled his Celtic tally for the season as he headed home Mikel Lustig’s cross in the 67th minute to move the Glasgow giants four points clear of Aberdeen with a game in hand over their nearest challengers.
“I’m very happy. To win 3-0 just two and a half days after playing in Turkey is great,” said Celtic manager Ronny Deila, whose side drew 1-1 with Fenerbahce in the Europa League on Thursday. “That’s 10 times we have come back from Europe and we’ve had 10 victories, so you can’t do better than that.”
St Johnstone manager Tommy Wright said that he was proud of his players.
“We took the game to Celtic and probably created more clear-cut opportunities,” he said. “We squandered two or three good opportunities and it wasn’t really until the third goal that we felt Celtic really started to cut us open.”
Before the game, Emilio Izaguirre warmed up for the match in a T-shirt sporting an emotional message in memory of his Honduran team-mate Arnold Peralta, who was recently murdered in his homeland. The pair shared a house in Glasgow when Peralta was playing for Rangers.
