St Johnstone were taken apart by champions in waiting, Celtic in an utterly one-sided contest at Parkhead.
This was watching through the fingers stuff for the Saints fans as their team collapsed to the same brutal 7-0 scoreline of day one in the 2019/20 season.
Given the chances Ange Postecoglou’s men wasted in the last 10 minutes, this could have been double figures.
The Saints goal difference has taken a battering and it remains to be seen what the impact is on confidence in the camp that had been growing over the last couple of months.
The story of this match was pretty clear almost from the moment Saints gave up possession from their kick-off – Celtic attack v Perth defence.
And it became pretty clear soon after that it would be a case of damage limitation.
It only took the hosts eight minutes to open the scoring.
Zander Clark had made a fine save to deny Reo Hatate seconds earlier but he could do nothing to prevent the same man beating him from 18 yards after James Brown had failed to clear effectively.
The second goal was even more of a self-inflicted wound.
On 22 minutes Callum Booth saw his back-pass intercepted by Giorgios Giakoumakis, who took the ball around Clark and rolled it home from an acute angle.
Daizen Maeda made it 3-0 at the break with a glancing header that beat Clark at his near post and seven minutes after the restart it was four when Josip Juranovic scored a penalty after half-time substitute Tom Sang had brought down Hatate.
With the visitors producing a defensive performance that reminded you of the long losing run earlier in the season, Celtic’s substitutes Matt O’Riley and Liel Abada scored three between them in what felt like next to no time (it was eight minutes).
That was 7-0 but mercifully several other chances were squandered and it didn’t get even worse.
FULL TIME
Celtic run out 7-0 victors in Glasgow.#SJFC pic.twitter.com/pM1r0WDNba
— St. Johnstone FC (@StJohnstone) April 9, 2022
