Goal drought ends with deluge

Celtic 7
(Nakamura 16, 36, 57; Crosas 52; Brown 55, 68; Potter (og) 75)

St Mirren 0

IT WAS, to employ gross understatement, the perfect riposte. For a team universally pilloried over their inability to score goals and win games of late, Celtic yesterday gave a damn good impression of being a side for whom such things come as naturally as breathing. Indeed, in hat-trick bagger Shunsuke Nakamura, the architect of the champions' biggest win in three years, they were supplied with a performance of breathtaking beauty – the most decorous moment of which was when he curled in a free-kick from the most unpromising of angles, a full 30 yards to the right of goal, to bring up his triple as the hour mark approached.

A joke went around beforehand that Rangers' 1-0 win at Hamilton had left Celtic requiring "only" to score an 11-0 win over St Mirren, unbeaten in their last five games, to regain the Premier League leadership they surrendered by drawing last week. All jesting aside, they could have easily racked up the cricket score required to go top on goal difference. It would merely have required one of their strikers to chip in, the most remarkable aspect of the 7-0 win being that none did. Jan Vennegoor of Hesselink had such a wretched afternoon he looked as if he could play for a month without finding the net, even contriving to miss a penalty. Indeed, it summed up the Dutchman's day that Celtic's seventh goal 15 minutes from time came from a Andreas Hinkel cross in to him… that was headed past his own keeper by John Potter.

The Paisley club's goalie, Chris Smith, had an afternoon even more excruciating than the Dutchman. By the concession of goal No.7, he looked as if any effort – with the exception of those fashioned by Vennegoor of Hesselink – could have beaten him. It didn't help that the rejigged defence in front of him appeared equally shambolic. Effectively, the destination of the points ceased to be a live issue when Jack Ross was sent off after making precisely the sort of clumsy challenge Scott McDonald invited as the Celtic striker nudged towards the six-yard box in 28 minutes. That Smith blocked Vennegoor of Hesselink's resultant penalty with his legs was one of the few bright points of the St Mirren's keeper's afternoon, thwarting a terrific overhead kick from the same player the other. There were a catalogue of black spots, meanwhile.

Not least when Stephen McManus fed Nakamura in the 16th minute and the Japanese attacker drifted inside past a couple of red shirts before battering the ball from the edge of the area. Smith seemed to have the measure of it only to allow the ball to squirm from his hands and drop behind him. The keeper thereafter looked as if he would have struggled to stop a beachball trundled at him, though little blame could be apportioned for Nakamura's second nine minutes before the interval. Exchanging passes with Hinkel, it was placement rather than power that did for Smith after the attacker shaped an angled shot in at the keeper's right-hand corner from just inside the area.

Smith's confidence would have been shot through after Marc Crosas unleashed a sumptuous fizzing drive from 22 yards that was beyond him before he had sighted it. So sweet was the player's first competitive goal it drew gasps even when replayed on the stadium screens. Following this 52nd minute strike, Celtic went on the rampage, with two goals in five minutes. Brown hared in on goal to drill past Smith for the first of these and, after Nakamura's third quickly followed, doubled his personal tally with a similar counter in 68 minutes. Plenty of Celtic's followers have championed a midfield that linked Crosas and Brown in the centre with Aiden McGeady and Nakamura in the flanks. Strachan seemed to be resistant to giving in to the clamour for this quartet. Watching their fluidity of movement and enterprise, it was hard to find reasons for the Celtic manager's reticence.

The lop-sided nature of the confrontation was out of keeping with the support-disaffecting travails of Strachan's side in 2009. Ahead of St Mirren's visit, they had a haul of only seven points from a possible 18. You have to go back to September/October 1998 – during a failed title defence, incidentally – for the last time they dredged up such a measly points total from six league games.

Strachan has predicted that the Glasgow club which scores the most goals will take the title. Even in the course of an outstanding afternoon's work made a breeze by Nakamura and Smith's interventions, there might have been behind-the-scenes cause for concern over Celtic's possible inability to edge such a shoot-out when depending on frontline players.

Vennegoor of Hesselink's hapless display was the product of one of those days you wouldn't wish on your worst enemy. Seeking a first strike since a double against Aberdeen in September brought him his only goals of the entire campaign, it was painful to watch the anguish that threatened to consume the Dutchman as he suffered a series of unfortunate incidents.

Just as well for Strachan that the out-of-touch player was surrounded by destroyers on a day Celtic's championship challenge stopped shipping in water.

MAN OF THE MATCH
Shunsuke Nakamura is not necessarily the player you would expect to energise his team with urgent promptings, but this is exactly what the attacker did. Throw in the immaculate nature of his work, as well as a hat-trick, and you have the player whose contribution towered over all others.

QUICK FACT
The 7-0 win made for Celtic's highest goals total in a game since Dunfermline were beaten 8-0 at East End Park three years ago.

TALKING POINT
Just how will Gus MacPherson now prepare for the Homecoming Scottish Cup quarter-final against Celtic at new St Mirren Park next Saturday?

Brown wants 'frighteningly good' Nakamura to stay
SCOTT Brown has urged Celtic to do everything they can to convince Shunsuke Nakamura to stay for one more season.

Japan midfielder Nakamura, who scored a hat-trick yesterday, last week claimed he had yet to make a final decision on his future, having previously seemed certain to return to his homeland when his contract expires at the end of the current campaign.

Brown said: "I hope he can be talked into staying for another season. He is probably one of the fittest in our team and his natural ability is frightening.

"So we all hope Naka can stay and, with a wee bit of luck, the board can convince him to do that."

Describing just what makes his team-mate so special, Scotland midfielder Brown added: "You see him in training and games; he rarely gives the ball away and always keeps possession.

"He's also good on the ball. Naka is in the gym all the time and he's the last to leave after training. He is dedicated. Shunsuke is always hitting free-kicks and practising bits and bobs."

Birmingham City manager Alex McLeish has told his players to build on their performance in the midweek draw with Crystal Palace when they visit Sheffield United at lunchtime today.

The Blues have been part of the leading trio in the Coca-Cola Championship, along with Wolves and Reading, since the start of the season but their form has faltered of late.

They have won only two matches since the start of the year, putting their promotion hopes in some jeopardy.

However, McLeish was impressed by their efforts at Selhurst Park on Tuesday and has called for more of the same against seventh-placed United.

"There was a belief about the players the other night at Crystal Palace," the former Scotland manager said. "Although we didn't score, we created a lot of chances and it was a much better performance. It's up to these guys to take that responsibility forward, starting on Sunday."

Seven goals, but Strachan forced to defend forwards
THE fact that Gordon Strachan required to defend his strikers following his side's 7-0 thrashing of St Mirren highlights the peculiar times Celtic are living through.

A going-over that significantly ate into Rangers' goal difference advantage at the top of the SPL, the victory was notable for being both the most emphatic home win of Strachan's three-and-a-half year reign and achieved without a goal from forward line duo Jan Vennegoor of Hesselink and Scott McDonald, or their replacements Georgios Samaras and Ben Hutchison.

A luckless afternoon for Vennegoor of Hesselink – during which he had a penalty saved – means he has now gone more than 14 hours without a goal. The Dutchman and McDonald struggled to exhibit the goal scent permeating the aromatic efforts of hat-trick stand-out Shunsuke Nakamura and double-netting Scott Brown. There was, however, no chance of Celtic's manager expressing any anxiety over that.

"It doesn't bother me at all," Strachan said. "I'm still going to enjoy watching TV tonight as long as Dale Winton's on. Scott and Jan created a lot of chances out there. I think you could see that we got scruffy after they went off. That shows just what good movement they had."

Strachan accepted his team "did get a lot of breaks", the "biggest" of these being Ross Jack's dismissal after 28 minutes. St Mirren manager Gus MacPherson "had no complaints" about the straight red shown to the defender for denying McDonald a clear goalscoring opportunity, but was entitled to be privately peeved at Strachan's clumsy attempts to sympathise with him.

Sidling over to the St Mirren manager in his technical area and putting an arm round him after his team had plundered their seventh goal, Strachan's gesture would not have eased the discomfiture gripping MacPherson. Yet, to his credit, the St Mirren manager entered into the spirit by throwing a towel in the direction of his home counterpart.