CALLUM McGREGOR is preparing for a derby landmark at Parkhead on Sunday.
It will be the Celtic captain’s 50th game against the club’s city rivals and undoubtedly the 33-year-old midfielder will be hoping there is a seismic turnaround in fortunes from the preceding encounter.
McGregor appeared to be in a state of shock as he handled the media interviews in the immediate fall-out of a calamitous performance from the champions in which they hardly laid a glove on a team that had been knocked out of two European competitions – by Jagiellonia Bialystok and Jablonec – had already lost to Hibs and required a stoppage-time goal to overcome St Mirren four days earlier, both at the same venue.
It was hardly a sequence of results and displays to strike fear into the heart of any opponent.
And yet Derek McInnes’ team were allowed to run all over Celtic. Somehow those in green-and-white jerseys contrived to transform a collection of strugglers into a band of some sort of superpowers.
A BHOY ALONE…Callum McGregor isolated at Ibrox.
In truth, Martin O’Neill was slow to respond to a simple change by his opposite number who deployed left-back James Penrice in a midfield role and – hey presto! – their extra man against McGregor, Benjamin Nygren and Mika Baur gave the hosts an iron grip of proceedings against a team that appeared to have little stomach for the fight.
Alas, more than a few looked intimidated in a partisan setting without a solitary Celtic voice to offer encouragement.
It gives me no pleasure to make this observation.
I am fortunate enough to be able to count former Celtic players as friends. I’m talking about Billy McNeill, Tommy Gemmell, Bobby Murdoch, Bertie Auld, Big John Hughes and Davie Hay, among others I have been honoured to know over the many years.
Terrified of an Ibrox stadium with 50,000 home fans creating a toxic atmosphere? These guys would have relished the challenge. I can envisage Wee Bertie conducting the choir as the songsters went through their questionable repertoire.
Today, though, Celtic are not gifted too many individuals with the understanding of what these tussles really mean, the aftershock of a dire display, the misery when expectation levels crumble and turn to dust.
McGregor does. So, too, do Colby Donovan, Kieran Tierney and Liam Scales from Sunday’s starting line-up. On the bench, James Forrest and Dane Murray plus Luke McCowan in the stand would be aware of what is required on Glasgow derby day.
These are characters who may just go that extra yard or so in these confrontations.
IBROX AGONY…Callum McGregor fails to block Dan Neil’s shot for the home side’s third goal.
That is not to dismiss the input of their team-mates, but you can’t expect players born in Tunisia, Colombia, Norway, Germany, Egypt etcetera to be indoctrinated by that unique emotion that comes with being born and brought up in a Celtic environment.
Please don’t get me wrong, dear reader, I am not a believer of dismissing the qualities of those born outside these shores. If they are good enough, they are more than welcome to strut their stuff for the Hoops.
Think Henrik Larsson, for a start.
This is a time for Celtic to stick together and there must be no rifts in the dressing room. We don’t need any divisions among the players with a Them v Us situation developing.
In the aftermath of a sound drubbing, McGregor admitted: “The difference between the two sides was you saw a team and then you saw a team of individuals.
“Rangers were a team and you could see that.
“We looked like a team of individuals who like to do our own thing and play when we got the ball, not necessarily run when you don’t have the ball when that’s the thing you can’t do when you come here.
“You can’t defend with six players, it’s impossible.”
OH, NO…Callum McGregor can’t disguise his disappointment.
To which six players does the team’s onfield leader refer? Presumably, the back four plus himself would make up five. That excludes one of McGregor’s midfield partners. Who wasn’t pulling their weight? Benjamin Nygren? Or Mika Baur?
Clearly, the skipper is not including Camilo Duran, Kasper Hogh or Sebastian Tounekti in giving a helping hand as the game ran away from Celtic.
McGregor, naturally, doesn’t deal in specifics, but there is always a danger messages can be misconstrued.
Footballers are human beings. They are capable of downing tools, going in a huff and spitting out the dummy when they feel they are victims of an injustice.
Football is littered with so-called personalities who react in a selfish manner to what they perceive, rightly or wrongly, to be some sort of remark that is a slight upon their professionalism.
McGregor wasn’t reading from a script in the Ibrox media room. He was hurting and made the points he believed needed to be aired.
Let’s hope they will be received in the manner in which they were delivered.
Anyway, as we are all aware, the best place to do your talking is on the pitch.
ALEX GORDON
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