Celtic made St Mirren look 'like Brazil' - here's why I think reigning champions are out of title race
Chris Sutton has listed three reasons why Celtic will NOT defend their Premiership crown this season
Chris Sutton has ruled Celtic out of the Premiership title race after claiming his old club made struggling St Mirren “look like Brazil” during their unconvincing 1-0 win on Saturday.
The Hoops claimed three valuable points at home to the Buddies thanks to Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain’s early strike to keep Martin O’Neill side in the hunt, but Sutton was left astounded at how the visitors were allowed to keep the ball for long spells of the contest.
With all three title contenders winning on the same weekend for only the second time this season, the top three clubs are now only separated by three points, with Hearts still the team to catch.
But Sutton has seen enough of Celtic to suggest it could now a straight shoot-out between Hearts and Rangers, even with both still due to travel to Parkhead during the split.
“Do we now think it's a two horse race? I'm now ruling Celtic out of the title race,” he told The Warm-Up. “Martin O'Neill says Celtic need to win all five games. The thing about the weekend is I've never seen St Mirren, in all my years in Scottish football, go to Celtic Park and play like that in the second half.
“It's an amazing turnaround in terms of style. They were like Brazil - Celtic could not get the ball off them. They were popping it around and it was like ole’s. The reason Celtic cannot win the league is that they don't control games. They don't have that control. The midfield three that have started the last two games - McGregor, Oxlade-Chamberlain and Nygren - I don't think they have the legs in there.
“You have the striking situation. You're saying if Iheanacho is fit but that's a big if. The fact that Martin isn't starting him and going for Cvancara, who quite clearly isn't a natural goal scorer, he's having to muddle through games and I really don't see it happening.
“Celtic cannot win five games. I don't think there's the fear factor from Rangers and Hearts going to Celtic Park anymore. They believe they can go there and win.”
Martin O’Neill on Celtic’s failure to find elusive second goal
Interim Celtic boss Martin O’Neill was pleased that his side managed to dig out three points while not playing well.
“We’ve stayed in the hunt and won the game,” he stated. “In fairness to the players, they did dig it out at the end of the day, so it was good. St Mirren played very well, had control, good wee parts of the game, particularly in the second half.
“We just couldn’t get the elusive second goal, a wee bit like Dundee last week. But this time, where I think we created a number of chances at Dundee, we created much less today.”
“I think it’s maybe a combination of everything. You start to look then why that was the case, obviously maybe look at what we did this week and maybe change it little bit around. You’re not sure, but it seemed to befall a number of us at the same time, which is a bit of a worry.”