Celtic continue relentless charge towards title with win over St Johnstone to end 2024 undefeated at home

Celtic have defeated St Johnstone to end the year undefeated at home and continue their relentless charge towards another title.

Nicolas Kuhn and Daizen Maeda were both on the scoresheet with Kyogo Furuhashi also grabbing a double in a comfortable win.

The 4-0 win means the Hoops end 2024 without a single defeat at Celtic Park in all competitions in the calendar year.

It was one-way traffic in the first-half as the league leaders piled pressure on to the St Johnstone goal with Reo Hatate, Kyogo and Arne Engels all coming close to breaking the deadlock.

And it was Kuhn who grabbed the opener with his 14th goal of the season when he latched on to a through ball by Hatate before breaking through the visitors’ defence and firing past Josh Rae.

It remained 1-0 going into half-time and Simo Valakari would probably have been relieved that it wasn’t more with Celtic having 15 shots at goal and enjoying 75% possession in the first 45 as the Saints failed to register a single shot on goal.

The St Johnstone boss made three-changes at the break and they showed a bit more attacking intent early in the second-45 with Kasper Schmeichel getting his first sight of the ball.

Celtic had the ball in the net soon after but the own-goal was ruled out for offside after Kyogo strayed beyond the final man in the build up.

But the Japan forward made up for that soon after when he followed in on a Bernardo shot to double the lead with a header from yards out.

Kyogo was on target again just after the hour-mark when he turned home a cross from Engels to make it 3-0 and all but secure the three-points.

Maeda then got in on the act when he made it 4-0 with just over 15 minutes of the game remaining.

Elsewhere second-placed Rangers drew 2-2 with Motherwell at Fir Park meaning Celtic increase their lead at the top of the table to 14 points.