Familiar foes add to Saints’ woes

Celtic complete third win over Perth men in 12 days

CELTIC 5 ST JOHNSTONE 0

St Johnstone must be sick of the sight of Celtic.

It’s nothing personal. It is just that, in what has otherwise been an excellent season for Saints, they have suffered badly at the hands of the Hoops.

Indeed, this latest defeat in the William Hill Scottish Cup fifth round in Glasgow was the third dished out by the men in green and white in just 12 days.

The scoreline in wins for the season also reads Celtic 5 St Johnstone 0, with 16 goals conceded and a big, fat zero scored.

This was an easy passage to the quarter-finals for Brendan Rodgers’ team, who scored through Scott Sinclair and Scott Brown in the first half, with James Forrest and hat-trick hero Sinclair again – and again – on target in the second.

Like Britain’s army of punters deprived of their trips to the track, Saints weren’t at the races.

Indeed, the hosts were two up after just nine minutes and the Perth men never looked like preventing a cup exit.

Saints had made three changes to the side that lost away to Hamilton in the league in midweek. There were no places for Ross Callachan, Michael O’Halloran or Tony Watt. Into the team came Murray Davidson, David Wotherspoon and Chris Kane.

Celtic had Forrest back from injury, while Jonny Hayes filled in at left-back.

Once the action started, it was pass, pass, pass by Celtic until they ripped the Saints defence wide open on just three minutes.

The foundation was laid out wide right by loan star Jeremy Toljan, who picked out Oli Burke with a nice pass. He burst forward into the box and when he didn’t shoot for goal himself the home fans groaned.

However, they were grinning when his cutback was slammed home by Sinclair from a very tight angle. St Johnstone goalie Zander Clark has been superb at times against Celtic but he was too easily beaten at his righthand post this time.

It was the stuff of nightmares for the McDiarmid men, who had hoped to