Martin O'Neill admits Celtic are less threatening without Camilo Duran
Martin O’Neill discovered that Celtic are a less threatening team without their “main man” Camilo Duran after they maintained their perfect William Hill Premiership start with a narrow 1-0 win at St Johnstone.
The Hoops boss opted to freshen up his team with five changes ahead of Sunday’s Premier Sports Cup trip to Rangers, with key men like Duran, Benjamin Nygren and Kierney Tierney starting on the bench and Cameron Carter-Vickers rested as he was afflicted by stiffness.
While O’Neill was thrilled to see debutant keeper Sam Johnstone make a stunning save to deny Joel Cotterill at 0-0 in the first half, the manager was less enamoured with the way his attack functioned in the absence of livewire Colombian forward Duran.
“Our main man only came on in the last 10 or 15 minutes, so it gives you food for thought,” said O’Neill, reflecting on how the changes worked out.
“Duran doesn’t start for us, he’s just been class. He looked tired in the game against St Mirren on Saturday, but I’m not surprised for the amount of things he does for us, both with the ball, which is terrific, and also the work that he does off it.
“He’s second only to Daizen Maeda in terms of closing players down. So I wanted to try and see if we could do without him, and the answer is probably not.”
O’Neill’s side made it six league wins in a row this term and are five points ahead of second-placed Rangers and six above third-placed Hearts.
The manager indicated that Johnstone’s impressive debut – with regular number one Viljami Sinisalo on the bench – has given him a decision to make ahead of Sunday’s Old Firm clash.
“The save was fantastic, a really, really brilliant reaction save,” said the manager.
“He’s a fine goalkeeper, and it’s just a matter of him getting up to speed with things. Sinisalo’s done very, very well indeed, and while I (ideally) do not want to use games like this, I have to find out about a number of players.
“We’ll see what happens on Sunday but we’ve got loads and loads of games, and it is really nice to know that I have actually two really decent goalkeepers.”
Asked about the likelihood of Carter-Vickers being fit for Sunday, O’Neill said: “I’m hoping that he would be available, yes. He has hardly missed a minute of pre-season, and also the games, after being out for a year, and he was just feeling really sore on Saturday evening. He should be okay for Sunday.”
Saints boss Simo Valakari said: “I’m very proud of the effort. I think we showed what type of team we can be. Our players showed their qualities but the main disappointment is the result.
“And the second disappointment is when you create chances against the champions, you need to take them. We asked questions of them and we were there until the last kick of the match but Celtic found a way, they produced that one moment to score a goal.”
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