It might not be a crisis for the rest of the clubs in the Premiership but in Celtic’s world, their current situation is as near to one as has been known for a few seasons.
And it is now St Johnstone’s job to try and take advantage.
Saints welcomes the Hoops to McDiarmid Park tomorrow night, with Brendan Rodgers’ men mid-table in the league and coming off two bad away results.
Defender Richard Foster admitted this may be a favourable time to play the Betfred Cup holders.
“It’s never easy to face Celtic but they’re maybe not firing on all cylinders at the moment and if that continues on Wednesday night then we have a chance,” he said.
“If Celtic turn up and are the Celtic of two seasons ago or even last season then even if we play our best they will probably still beat us.
“But they’ll be feeling the pressure a little bit for the first time in three seasons and everyone expects them to win. We’re underdogs and in that sense it’s a good time to play them.
“But we need to be clinical. The manager said we went to Ibrox and won 3-1 last season and created fewer chances than we did on Sunday.”
Foster added: “You need to score at Ibrox and Parkhead when you get those chances because they are clinical, as Rangers showed on Sunday by punishing us.
“The scoreline was a reflection of their dominance and from our point of view that’s disappointing.
“The defeat was hard to take due to the manner of the goals we conceded. Rangers have got top quality players but we didn’t make it too difficult for them to score their goals.
“The first was a great free kick and you can’t do much about that but the rest were preventable, although we were chasing the game in the second half and more open than normal.
“If you concede after nine minutes then you are never going to give yourself a chance to win the game and they dominated from there.
“We had a good chance at 2-0 and others after that but it seemed every time we threatened they went up the park and scored.
“We knew Rangers would get a massive lift with Celtic’s defeat and they were on the front foot.
“They probably saw it as a chance to put Celtic under real pressure and we’ve allowed them to do it which is disappointing but we have another game on Wednesday night and a win over Celtic will put the Rangers defeat to bed.”
