Managerless St Johnstone will not alter our approach heading into Saturday’s clash in Perth, explained Callum McGregor, at his media conference yesterday afternoon which was attended by The Celtic Star…

St Johnstone are currently without a manager after Craig Levein was sacked ten months into his job. The Saints currently sit 10th in the table having picked up just four points. Levein’s side had only racked up four wins in the league since January and are on an incredibly poor run of form.

Celtic have won 11 out of their last 12 meetings with the Perth side, most recently dropping some rare points at Celtic Park last August in a laborious 0-0 draw, in a game that signalled a difficult season before Brendan Rodgers worked his magic.

The last time St Johnstone defeated Celtic was 11 May 2016 at McDiarmid Park in a 2-1 victory for the home side. The Hoops had wrapped up the league title and it was one of Ronny Deila’s final games in charge of the club. History points to a comfortable win for Brendan Rodgers and his side.

Nonetheless, McGregor highlighted that Celtic are fully focused on the game and are not distracted by the murmuring of the opponents.

Speaking at his media conference at Celtic Park yesterday afternoon where the Celtic captain was there to lend support to the Celtic FC Women side who are in Champions League action this evening, Calmac said:

“For us we want to try and focus on ourselves as much as we can, of course we will have a look at St Johnstone in terms of the way we think that they will try and stop us from playing by possibly looking at previous games.

“The onus is more on us and what we can do and the little bits picking up from the weekend where we can get better and of course their manager might come in and change the game-plan for them but as much as we can we look at ourselves and see how we can go dominate the game.”

The skipper’s predecessor and Celtic legend Scott Brown pulled out of the race to become St Johnstone manager yesterday, but McGregor believes that Brown has all the hallmarks to become a top manager, “yes, I think so. I obviously know Scott really well from my time here, we played in midfield together for a number of years and when you do that you understand what makes people tick, and how good they really are and how much they understand the game. So, it’s no surprise that he has went into management, has started really well and I can see him having a Premiership job not before too long.”

Captain Callum quickly dismissed the bizarreness of the situation if Brown were to be in the dugout on Saturday, “that is football for you, it will happen at some point I’m sure, but I don’t think that’ll change the dynamic too much, I’ll want to win, and he’ll want to win.”

Conor Spence

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