Scottish Premiership news: Celtic edge St Mirren in Paisley to maintain perfect domestic record

Defending champions Celtic edged St Mirren 2-1 in Paisley on Saturday to maintain their perfect start to the Scottish Premiership season.

Nikolas Agrafiotis had opened the scoring for the hosts from the penalty spot after Liam Scales was penalised for handball, but Scales headed in Mika Baur’s corner before Camilo Durán set up Yang Hyun-jun to complete the comeback.

The result sends the Hoops five points clear at the top of the table after five straight victories, while St Mirren sit in third place following their first loss of the campaign.

O’Neill praises tight win

After the match, Celtic manager Martin O’Neill told Sky Sports: “It was a tough evening for us.

“We created some chances in the game, but I didn’t feel any phenomenal fluency about us.

“We really dug it out at the end, coming from the goal behind against a team who are in really brilliant form.

“They played splendidly for quite some periods of the game, but we saw it through at the end, which was great.”

McLeish disappointed but optimistic

St Mirren boss Craig McLeish chose to remain positive despite the loss, saying: “I think it shows how far we’ve come as a group and what we’re doing.

“The boys are really disappointed that we’ve not taken a point from the game at least.

“We know Celtic are going to carry a threat and they caused us problems at times.

“We still carried a threat ourselves – I think we had 19 shots at goal, which is really good that we’re carrying that threat throughout the game.

“The goals that we actually lose are probably disappointing from our point of view, but Celtic still have other chances and things as well.

“We have to dust ourselves down and go again.

“The good thing about football: there’s always another game around the corner.”

YOU MAY ALSO LIKE: Celtic news: Martin O’Neill announces 25-man Europa League squad, including seven summer recruits