A FIRST-HALF Liel Abada double and a late Nir Bitton strike helped Celtic get back to winning ways against St Johnstone at McDiarmid Park this afternoon despite the absence of a raft a first team regulars.

But the cinch Premiership win – which reduced the lead held by Rangers, who take on St Mirren at Ibrox later today, at the top of the table to three points – came at a cost.

Kyogo Furuhashi, the Parkhead club’s leading scorer and the hero of their Premier Sports Cup win last week, limped off injured in the first-half.  

Second-half substitute Chris Kane pulled a goal back for St Johnstone to give the Perth club a chance of salvaging a point.

But Bitton put the result beyond doubt with eight minutes remaining and Ange Postecoglou’s men put their disappointing goalless draw with St Mirren in Paisley on Wednesday night behind them and finished 2021 on a positive note.  

Joe Hart, Scott Bain, Conor Hazard, Greg Taylor, Anthony Ralston, Callum McGregor, Mikey Johnston were all missing from the visitors’ squad along with long-term absentees Albian Ajeti, James Forrest, Georgios Giakoumakis, Jota and Christopher Jullien.

Vasilis Barkas, Carl Starfelt, James McCarthy, Josip Juranovic and Furuhashi all came in for Celtic’s final game before the winter break.

It was the first sighting of Greek goalkeeper Barkas, who has been unable to justify his transfer fee since joining in a £4.5m move from AEK Athens last summer, since he had started in the Champions League qualifier against Midtjylland way back on July 20.

 The changes prompted Postecoglou to switch to a three man defence and a 3-4-1-2 formation with Starfelt, Cameron Carter-Vickers and Stephen Welsh at the back and Liam Scales and Josip Juranovic deployed as wing backs.

Abada remained up front alongside Furuhashi and the winger did well to open the scoring in the ninth minute after Juranovic had squared into the six yard box.

He met the delivery with first-time shot that Elliott Parish did well to keep out with a fine instinctive save. But the forward then nodded in from a few yards out.   

Celtic were dealt a serious blow five minutes after edging in front when Furuhashi suffered what appeared to be a recurrence of the hamstring strain that had ruled him out for 10 days before the Premier Sports Cup final when he was trying to chase down a long ball. He limped off and was replaced by Joey Dawson.

Dawson, the 18-year-old who was signed from Scunthorpe United in the summer, came on to make his debut for the Parkhead club. The versatile youngster, who can play in midfield or up front, has been performing well for the Celtic B team in the Lowland League this term. But this was a big step up.

Dawson, who slotted in alongside Abada, dealt well with being thrown on in a match that was being shown live on Sky Sports. His side continued to dominate and increased their lead when Abada netted his second in the 22nd after being supplied by Tom Rogic.

Postecoglou’s side should really have been further ahead at half-time, but Parrish denied Abada, Juranovic and Scales to keep Callum Davidson’s team in the game.

That said, St Johnstone were missing Zander Clark, David Wotherspoon, Murray Davidson and Shaun Rooney and the bottom-place team struggled to lay a glove on their opponents without them. Barkas had, other than pluck an Al Crawford corner out of the air, next to nothing to do during the opening 45 minutes.  

Davidson made two changes for the second-half. He took off Craig Bryson and Crawford and put on Liam Craig and Chris Kane. Parrish had to palm a goal-bound Abada shot over his crossbar just two minutes after play restarted. But the home team were much improved with Craig and Kane on the park.

The latter pulled one back in the 69th minute after the former had intercepted an underhit Starfelt pass in the middle of the park. He fed Viv Solomon-Otabar outside him and the winger whipped a cross into the area which his team mate headed into the top left corner.

There were a few nervous moments for Celtic thereafter – not least when Jacob Butterfield went close with a long-range attempt – but captain Bitton made sure of the victory when he fired beyond Parrish from the edge of the penalty box.

Dawson was denied a debut goal with four minutes of regulation time remaining when Jamie McCart cleared his shot off the line.