If Celtic retain their title, they look like doing it the hard way.<\/p>\n
Wins are paramount. Comfortable ones seemingly elusive but right now, not too many connected with Celtic will care. They remain in the fight. Somehow. <\/p>\n
It’s arguable whether the outcome was fully deserved as there was always that lurking doubt that something might undo them.<\/p>\n
That’s often been the case this season. Celtic have been crying out for a striker to consistently bang in goals. In this vital win, that was clear as day again.<\/p>\n
Benjamin Nygren has been the only one with a clinical edge all season but Oxlade-Chamberlain showed his quality in this crucial step in the title race.<\/p>\n
That said, Celtic remain right in the hunt heading into the split and with more home games than away, they’re in a position they would absolutely take right now.<\/p>\n
St Mirren took six points from the last six to deliver a massive shot in the arm as they try to battle up the table.<\/p>\n
Interim manager Craig McLeish seems to cut a calm figure who brings clarity. This was always a tough challenge but they did perform well, particularly after the break.<\/p>\n
However, the outcome leaves them with a big fight ahead. Anything here would have been worth its weight in gold.<\/p>\n
They have the chance of another huge Hampden upset against Celtic next weekend in the cup but their fight to remain in the top-flight clearly takes precedence. <\/p>\n
A home fixture against bottom side Livingston is next in that fight. One they will focus on capitalising on but they can take plenty of encouragement from this performance and recent results. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If Celtic retain their title, they look like doing it the hard way. Wins are paramount. Comfortable ones…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":404603,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[563],"tags":[64,63,596,85],"class_list":["post-600594","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-football","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/600594","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=600594"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/600594\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/404603"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=600594"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=600594"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=600594"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}