Celtic 5 - 2 St Johnstone: Five star Celtic prove their worth

When Fortune was replaced midway through the second half he got a strong ovation from the faithful. They were thrilled, but they were also relieved. Their 3.8m striker had broken his duck. Phew!

Two cool finishes, one in each half, eased the pressure that was building up around Tony Mowbray's box office signing. Fortune had Shaun Maloney and Aiden McGeady to thank. Both wingers were excellent all day, particularly Maloney, who scored two goals of his own and played with an intelligence that conjured up memories of him at his finest just before he ventured south to Aston Villa.

And there was an exclamation mark of a goal to finish the rout. Scott McDonald got it and he seemed more than a little glad to be making a point to his manager after getting dropped for the Arsenal game last Tuesday night.

Mowbray surely took the hint and you'd fancy he won't make the same mistake twice, which is not something you can say for the beleaguered Gary Caldwell. There was a lot of good things in this victory for Mowbray's perspective, but there were awful things as well. Conceding two goals at home to a rookie team fresh out of the First Division was not exactly heartening. And it could have been more.

One of the goals they lost, the first, was a study in slapstick and it was another personal calamity for Caldwell. The captain has been having a terrible August and it got worse after he gifted an opening to Collin Samuel, who duly rifled it past Artur Boruc. Mowbray defended Caldwell in the aftermath, and, in fairness to the defender, he is a resolute character who has suffered stick at various points of his career and has always come through it. Celtic fans will be hoping he gets over his current mishaps in double quick time. Before the trip to the Emirates on Wednesday, ideally.

The visitors, it has to be said, brought much to the contest and their supporters were rarely silenced. At 3-1, they were singing, at 4-1 they were chanting, at 5-1 they were hollering and at 5-2 they went into prolonged raptures, hailing themselves as champions. Tremendous.

They've still got a pep in their stride after their heroics of last season and they contributed plenty to the game, despite the eventual landslide. In fact, before it went pear-shaped for them, they were the better team and could well have been ahead before Fortune did the trick for Celtic. Inside 15 minutes, Jody Morris sent Filipe Morais on his way and had it not been for a spot of snappy defending from Scott Brown then Morais might well have scored.

Derek McInnes, the St Johnstone manager, said that Samuel had "spooked" the Celtic centre-backs, and he was right. Glenn Loovens had a terrible time with him early on. The promising St Johnstone beginning was destroyed, however, when Celtic went in front. And, lo, it was Fortune who got the goal.

Maloney's pace and trickery took him past two tacklers wide on the left, first Stuart McCaffrey and then Garry Irvine, and then he squared a pass to his striker, who duly stroked it past Alan Main with all the composure of a guy who'd already had a hatful of Celtic goals to his name. "There was no pressure on me," Fortune said. "I knew that one day I would score, no doubt about that. Everything was fine today."

It was tough on St Johnstone and it only got tougher shortly after when Celtic got a second. This was a gorgeous goal, a move that began with McDonald and carried on through McGeady, who found Andreas Hinkel running free outside him. The German put in a precise cross and Maloney, all 5ft of him, headed it home from close range.

At that point, you were thinking bloodbath, but St Johnstone stemmed the flow with a goal eight minutes later. Call it Caldwell's catastrophe.

He tried to put his head on a hopeful downfield punt from St Johnstone and made the most outrageous hash of it, allowing Samuel in behind him. Samuel took little time to lash his shot past Boruc.

St Johnstone's vague hopes of a result were shot to pieces in rapid order early in the new half. After just eight minutes, Morris gave the ball away in midfield and Celtic stormed clear. Maloney ran and ran and from just outside the box he smacked in a shot that Main failed to deal with.

Morris did a mea culpa routine. "I gave the ball away," he said. "I tried to play a pass across the midfield and I made a stupid mistake. The third goal was so important to the game. It was a stupid pass from me."

And as St Johnstone were coming to terms with the kick to their stomach, they suffered another.

Again, it was a clever move from Celtic, Massimo Donati and McGeady doing trojan work and setting up Fortune for another gentle finish with the inside of his right boot. The only thing that took the smile of the striker's face was the sitter he missed directly after. "I should have had a hat-trick," he said. "That was a bad point."

Celtic were not done with St Johnstone yet, though. Danny Fox is proving a highly promising acquisition from Coventry, a full-back whose delivery into the box is quite exceptional. On Tuesday night against Arsenal, Fox put in a couple of inviting crosses but no Celtic man bothered to make the right run. In the 74th minute here, he put in another one of those tempting balls and little McDonald was there waiting for it, nodding it home and staking his claim for the Emirates on Wednesday night.

Caldwell's latest blunder leaves manager unmoved

GARY Caldwell left the building without commenting on his strange blunder, but Tony Mowbray did his talking for him. Mowbray didn't so much ride to his rescue as try to dismiss the latest mishap in his captain's season as an irrelevance.

"He's an outstanding individual, Gary," said the manager. "I've just told him not to be his own worst enemy with this. Don't feed the monster chasing you. He just needs to do his job, week-in and week-out and I have no doubt he will do that."

Caldwell is having a bad time of it, what with his red card against Norway, his own goal against Arsenal and his ridiculous error yesterday that allowed Collin Samuel in to score. Mowbray says he has no doubts about his centre-half ahead of the rematch with Arsenal and he also said he had no worries about Marc-Antoine Fortune, who opened his account with a couple of smart goals.

"Marco's been fine from day one," said Mowbray. "I've had no concerns. The media were driving this. The boy has a great work-rate and he doesn't have to score every week and I said that when I signed him. I'd have preferred if we'd won 5-0 but we've got a team capable of scoring plenty of goals. We can ask the opposition plenty of questions. The goals we scored were important for our confidence. Fortune got off the mark and it was great to see the wide players contributing again. But I wasn't happy with the nature of the goals we conceded. I'm frustrated that we lost two goals."

In that, he was not alone. Derek McInnes was singing a similar tune, even if he was philosophical about the hammering. "Celtic's agenda is to win the league and ours is to stay in it," he said.

"Collin Samuel was magnificent for us and we can take confidence from that and how we played. But we needed to defend crosses in to the box better.

"We won't be the only team who will lose five goals at Celtic Park this season, it's how you react to that and I'm looking for a reaction from my players."