Callum McGregor has admitted Celtic were “miles off” the standard required to win Saturday afternoon’s derby against Rangers, stating that he and his teammates will have to take their medicine on this one.
McGregor has had many fine games in green and white this season but today was not one of them. For the captain it was individually a poor showing and collectively Celtic were even worse, conceding three cheap goals to the Ibrox side across a difficult 90 minutes.
The midfielder notably found himself caught in possession with Carl Starfelt in the second half, allowing Fashion Sakala to nick the ball and have a clean route through to goal for Rangers’ third of the day.
McGregor didn’t hide behind excuses post-match, stating [STV]: “We were miles off our usual level, and that’s what happens, you’ll lose this kind of game if you are not at the races. We gave ourselves a lot to do, they scored at important times of the game and that took the game away from us. But we have to take our medicine and admit we were poor, we didn’t deserve anything from the game and we have to accept that.
“We just didn’t perform, we weren’t at the level that we normally are and if you turn up and perform like that then you don’t deserve anything out the game. I think home advantage in this fixture always plays a part, especially when they score early, it gives them a lift, it gives the crowd a lift and we made it difficult for ourselves. At times we have been able to come back from that I don’t think there is much else to say other than we had a bad day, we didn’t perform to our usual level and the defeat is a result of that.”
There’ll be no grand post-mortem on today’s defeat. It’s not a devastating blow that will sit with the Celtic squad, staff or fans for more than a day or two at most. Obviously, it was not nice to watch but it’s important to keep things in perspective.
This has been a fantastic season and there’s a treble on the cards. You’d expect the club to go on and strengthen the squad in the summer in key positions, too. But the direction Ange Postecoglou is taking the squad in is sound.
Today was a bad day that isn’t acceptable but from McGregor’s words, the leaders in our dressing room know that. There’s no shirking of responsibility here and that’s as good a sign as any we’re in good hands.
In other news, Ange Postecoglou delivers honest reaction to 3-0 Celtic defeat against Rangers
Receive a digest of our best Celtic content each week direct to your mailbox
