It’s time for the Celtic players to suck it all up because the pressure has now reached boiling point.
Celtic’s Champions League exit on Tuesday night was an utter farce and something that many critics saw coming weeks and weeks ago.
It’s now Callum McGregor’s job to pick the Celtic players up because their performances over the two legs against Kairat Almaty was beyond poor.
If there is one man who understands what the reaction to this defeat, and the noise around it all, is going to be like, then it’s the man with the armband.
Callum McGregor on ‘external noise’ after Celtic’s Champions League exit
After coming through the Celtic ranks as a fresh-faced and quick-footed winger, and now leading the charge from the middle of the park, McGregor has seen it all, as he told the players to ‘shake it off’ and look forward.
The Celtic skipper stated, ‘we know externally what the noise will be’, but everyone from within has to ‘stick together.’
More than likely, McGregor is probably referring to the noise around the Celtic board and the 2025 summer transfer business, as he told Amazon Prime post-match.
“Everyone is really, really disappointed,” said McGregor. “Not the result and the outcome that we wanted. The game goes right the way to penalties, and it can be a bit of a lottery at times.
“We are pushing late on to get the goal. We had a couple of chances, but it never quite fell. So, over the two legs, you have to give credit to them; they defended with everything.
“We have to shake this off. There is another massive game at the weekend. We want to be in the Champions League. We have to get over this disappointment really, really quickly. We know externally what the noise will be, and we have to stick together. We can still go on and have a good season, but we have to learn from that.”
McGregor thinks Celtic managed the Kairat Almaty game ‘pretty well’
One issue with McGregor’s comments, and this still shouldn’t hide the fact that he has been and continues to be a fantastic leader and servant to the club.
But he suggested that the players ‘managed the game pretty well’, when it was far from that, not just in Almaty, but also in Glasgow for the first leg.
The performance, from back to front, was very, very poor, and you won’t see much worse from Celtic, as McGregor added that everyone must ‘accept the outcome.’
“Tonight, I thought we actually managed the game pretty well,” said McGregor. “It was pretty scrappy, but we had the better moments.
“On another night, probably we go through, but we have to suck it up and get over the disappointment. It’s a big disappointment, but we have to bounce back quickly.
“We are so disappointed, we so wanted Champions League football, but it shows you, on any given night, you have to be on the level if you don’t quite carry the luck, and you aren’t quite there, then you won’t go through. We have had three really good years of Champions League and growing so much as a team.
“But we now have to park that, the domestic stuff becomes really important, and obviously we drop into the Europa League. We can still have a good season. The experienced players have a role to play in terms of picking everybody up for the weekend because there is another huge game.
“We all have to take responsibility, that’s one thing at Celtic, we never pass the blame. We never put it on any individual. Everyone, it’s a collective. We have to look at the game to see where we could be better, but over the two legs, we didn’t do enough to go and hurt them.
“Then you have to accept the outcome of that. We all have to take responsibility and keep pushing. We can still have a good season.”
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