Venue: Celtic Park                                                                   Date: 05/01/25                                                       Time: 15:00pm

Celtic bounced back from their midweek defeat to Rangers to comfortably dispatch St Mirren. A third consecutive defeat for Stephen Robinson’s men.

Nicolas Kuhn’s remarkable season continued when he opened the scoring, darting past his defenders to meet Daizan Maeda’s pinpoint low ball across the box.

Once the floodgates had been opened there was little hope a comeback for the visitors, Auston Trusty was far too comfortable heading in an Arne Engels corner for his first goal in a Celtic shirt.

A third and final blow would be delivered in the second half as confusing rained down on the visitors’ backline. Engels had found himself surrounded and his back heel seemed to be falling into Zach Hemming’s hands before he and Marcus Fraser collided to see the ball drop to Kuhn’s unforgiving feet.

Despite knocking at the door on numerous occasions, striker Adam Idah struggled to get the beating of Hemming and score his first league goal since November.

An early headed effort from another dangerous Engels corner early on could not be directed on target as St Mirren attempted limit their hosts’ opportunities.

Unfortunate too was the Republic of Ireland international to see his deflection of Engels’s shot saved by the keeper signed loan for the second time to replace Ellery Balcombe, himself recalled by Brentford.

Despite being marked by two players Maeda also had an opportunity to add a goal of his own but winger’s header lacked the requisite accuracy to trouble the keeper.

St Mirren had their best opportunity of the game late on when Jonah Ayunga outmuscled Cameron Carter-Vickers just outside the six yard area but Kasper Schmeichel reacted well to make the save.

With Rangers drawing away to Hibernian, Celtic gave themselves a thirteen point cushion at the top of the table.

Meanwhile St Mirren find themselves just one point above seventh place Hibs.

Line-Ups:

Celtic (4-3-3): K. Schmeichel, G. Taylor, A. Trusty, C. Carter-Vickers, A. Johnston, A. Engels, C. McGregor (c), L. McCowan (R. Hatate 70’), D. Maeda (L. Palma 83’), A. Idah (K. Furuhashi 83’), N. Kuhn (Yang Hyun-Jun 71’)

Substitutes: K. Furuhashi, P. Bernardo, R. Hatate, L. Palma, A. Ralston, L. Scales, V. Sinisalo, Alex Valle, Yang Hyun-Jun

St Mirren (3-5-1-1): Z. Hemming, R. Taylor, A. Gogic, M. Fraser, S. Tanser (D. John 84’), M. O’Hara (c) (O. Smyth 62’), C. Boyd-Munce (R. Idowu 83’), K. Phillips, E. Bwomono, G. Kiltie (O. Oseni 62’), T. Olusanya (J. Ayunga 62’)

Substitutes: J. Ayunga, A. Iacovitti, R. Idowu, D. John, M. Mandron, E. Mooney, O. Oseni, O. Smyth, P. Urminsky

Referee: Grant Irvine