St Johnstone need to 'earn luck' against Celtic

Manager Simo Valakari believes St Johnstone will have to "earn our luck" against champions Celtic on Wednesday. The newly-promoted Perth side have picked up seven points from their opening five Premiership fixtures. "We need to do our football things so well, then at the same time, we need to earn our luck, because against Celtic, if you want to beat them, you need to be a little bit lucky in some moments," Valakari said. "You need to do your things so well that the luck favours you and that's kind of the thing that we tried." Valakari's Saints defeated Brendan Rodgers' Celtic 1-0 at McDiarmid Park in their previous league meeting in April 2025, only to lose 5-0 in the Scottish Cup soon after. "We have done it but of course at the same time, we are realistic, humble, we know what's in front of us," said the Finn. "We worked so hard last year to get our promotion, to play in these matches, to be here, to play against Celtic, to play against these top teams and we need to be our best. We deserve to be here. "One of our main things for this season, we want to compete, so it doesn't matter who we play. "The biggest thing in Celtic is, it doesn't matter if it's 90 minutes, 92nd minute, you might win the games, still you fear that you're going to lose this, because the winning culture is so deep in them and it's not all about the winning culture, it's mostly about the quality of the players as well. "When you have a quality and you build up this winning culture, it's a dangerous combination."