Neil Lennon’s Celtic reached the Scottish Cup semi-finals as Christopher Jullien inspired them to a 1-0 win at McDiarmid Park.
Christopher Jullien was in inspired form at both ends of the pitch on Sunday and St Johnstone boss Tommy Wright was left ruing a brilliant display from the giant Celtic defender, speaking to the club’s Twitter page.
Neil Lennon’s side were certainly made to work for their Scottish Cup semi-final berth this weekend, edging past a dogged and determined St Johnstone side at McDiarmid Park.
And if it wasn’t for Celtic’s £7 million man, the most expensive defender north of the border, it might have been the Saints gearing up for a last-four clash with Aberdeen in the spring instead.
Not only did Jullien deceive the home goalkeeper as a late Ryan Christie free-kick flew into the net, he also made one key intervention with the scores level at 0-0.
“We’ve got to be extremely disappointed. We did a lot of hard work, especially at the start of the second half. I thought we’d weathered the storm and on occasions we were causing them problems,” Wright lamented.
“We had a few great opportunities. I think Jullien makes a great clearance.”
Eyebrows were raised when Celtic made the former Toulouse man one of the most expensive players in their history last summer but Jullien is certainly more Bobo Balde than Rafael Scheidt.
And though a commanding display in the cup might not make everyone in Glasgow forget about that miserable night against Copenhagen on Thursday, Jullien could hardly have done more to shut the critics up once again.
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