Celtic will be looking to maintain their perfect start to the Premiership season when they take on St Johnstone. It is an away fixture and is not expected to be straightforward for Martin O'Neill's side by any means.

But they have looked much better this season than they did in the previous one, except for that nightmare result away in Austria against LASK in the Champions League play-off.

In many ways, it feels like the team is still reeling from that result in many ways and have not looked as free-flowing since then. With their upcoming run of fixtures, they need to.

Following this game against St Johnstone, they will take on the Rangers twice within the space of a week, once in the League Cup and once in the Premiership. Sandwiched between those two derbies will be the club's Europa League opener against Ferencvaros.

So, that gives added importance to this game against St Johnstone. The Hoops need to do well in order to find their rhythm and go into that important three-game run on a positive note.

The Scottish FA have announced that Matthew MacDermid is going to be the referee for the game between St Johnstone and Celtic today.

He will be assisted by Chris Gentles and David Dunne. Grant Irvine will be on VAR duty and will have Duncan Williams as his assistant. Dan McFarlane will be the fourth official on the night.

It is pretty safe to say that there were some controversial decisions coming out of the previous game.

Goals from Camilo Duran and Shim Mheuka were ruled out, even though communication appeared to break down between the referee and the VAR at times.

It would be safe to say that everybody will want this game to be one without any controversial refereeing decisions.

Celtic have to be considered the favourites here, as is the case with pretty much every domestic game they take part in.

At the same time, that does not mean that they can take the opposition lightly. These are situations in which we have seen teams like Celtic slip up in the past.

So, one would hope that they bring their A-game to the game against St Johnstone, not just for the three points but also to ensure that they are well set up for the upcoming games against the Rangers and Ferencvaros.