{"id":191724,"date":"2025-12-14T18:42:08","date_gmt":"2025-12-14T18:42:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/191724\/"},"modified":"2025-12-14T18:42:08","modified_gmt":"2025-12-14T18:42:08","slug":"st-mirren-stun-celtic-to-win-scottish-league-cup-as-nancys-nightmare-goes-on-scottish-league-cup","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/191724\/","title":{"rendered":"St Mirren stun Celtic to win Scottish League Cup as Nancy\u2019s nightmare goes on | Scottish League Cup"},"content":{"rendered":"

Celtic now find themselves firmly in a mid-season crisis. Three games for Wilfried Nancy as the manager have resulted in the same number of defeats. The paucity of Celtic\u2019s display in this League Cup final was so striking and so alarming that it is already fair to ask questions about Nancy\u2019s suitability for this role. Celtic<\/a> look a mess.<\/p>\n

How St Mirren<\/a> capitalised. This will rank among the finest days in the Paisley club\u2019s history. St Mirren\u2019s second-half showing in particular was excellent. They were fully deserving winners. Celtic had no reply to St Mirren\u2019s tactical discipline.<\/p>\n

Two-goal Jonah Ayunga was the St Mirren hero. To illustrate how far Celtic have fallen, Ayunga arrived in Scottish football from Morecambe. Here he was, dismantling a woeful Celtic backline.<\/p>\n

St Mirren\u2019s afternoon had started in the best way possible. Just 96 seconds had been played when Marcus Fraser headed home a Keanu Baccus corner. This marked the third goal in as many games Celtic had lost from a corner.<\/p>\n

Quick GuideScottish Premiership roundup: Braga and Kingsley take Hearts clear Show\"\"<\/p>\n

Cl\u00e1udio Braga and Stephen Kingsley were on target as a resurgent Hearts won 2-0 away to misfiring Falkirk\u00a0on Saturday night to move six points clear at the top of the Premiership.\u00a0Buoyed by ending a four-game run without a victory with last Sunday\u2019s triumph against their title rivals Celtic, the Jambos raced into an early lead through Braga.\u00a0Hearts \u2013 who survived a Bairns penalty claim just before half-time \u2013 had to dig deep to keep their advantage intact before the substitute Kingsley killed off the Bairns\u2019 hopes of getting back into the game with a brilliant strike in the 77th minute (pictured).<\/p>\n

Celtic, who play St Mirren in the League Cup final on Sunday, have two games in hand.<\/p>\n

Jim Goodwin admitted he understood why the Dundee United fans booed at the final whistle of the 0-0 Premiership draw with Motherwell. The result meant that the Terrors have now failed to win in their last seven matches.\u00a0However, United manager Goodwin was determined to accentuate the positives, with his side keeping their first clean sheet since 23 September when they beat Aberdeen 2-0.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Irishman said: “We understand the frustration from the supporters. They turned out in great numbers again today. We’ve kept a clean sheet against a really, really good team. I’m going to give my players a bit of credit, off the back of a really disappointing performance last weekend.<\/p>\n

“We’re not happy not to win the game. We don’t set up to draw games of football. But we set up in a way out of respect to the opposition. Motherwell are a very good possession-based team. I think they’re probably, at this moment, the best team in the country in terms of how they play the game.”<\/p>\n

Livingston fought back from two goals down to salvage an important point from a 2-2 draw in the bottom-of-the-table Premiership clash with Dundee. The visitors took control of the game with two goals in quick succession in the first half from Yan Dhanda and Cameron Congreve.\u00a0After being booed off at the interval, Livingston improved in the second half and deservedly pulled one back through Jeremy Bokila. Then, just moments after coming on from the bench, Tete Yengi knocked an effort through the legs of Dundee goalkeeper Jon McCracken in the 85th minute.\u00a0The draw moved Livingston to within three points of second-bottom Kilmarnock while Dundee climbed to 10th, four points better off than the Lions. <\/p>\n

On Sunday,\u00a0Aberdeen’s improved form continued with a 2-1 comeback victory over struggling Kilmarnock, whose winless run stretched to 10 games.\u00a0The Dons toiled in the first period and were fortunate to trail by just one goal at the interval after Tyreece John-Jules opener the scoring for the visitors.\u00a0But the hosts upped the tempo in the second half and Kenan Bilalovic levelled before Jesper Karlsson tucked home a late penalty to extend their unbeaten league run to seven matches.\u00a0PA Media<\/p>\n

Photograph: Pete Summers\/Shutterstock Editorial<\/p>\n

Thank you for your feedback.<\/p>\n

Nancy\u2019s men did rally. Reo Hatate met a deep Kieran Tierney cross to volley past Shamal George. Celtic teams of greater substance would have improved from there. This side regressed.<\/p>\n

With Kasper Schmeichel in no man\u2019s land, Ayunga met Alex Gogic\u2019s cross to send St Mirren back in front. Gloss was added to St Mirren\u2019s victory as Miguel Freckleton played a wonderful pass to the marauding Declan John, the Welshman played in Ayunga and the forward found the net. Nancy, earlier so demonstrative on the touchline, now looked a troubled soul. And no wonder.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Celtic now find themselves firmly in a mid-season crisis. Three games for Wilfried Nancy as the manager have…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":191725,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[61,60,112],"class_list":["post-191724","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191724","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=191724"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191724\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/191725"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=191724"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=191724"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=191724"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}