Celtic just haven’t got going this season, even though they haven’t been beaten on the domestic stage.
That was proven by what happened in Europe when Celtic were knocked out of the Champions League in August, and those two dour goalless draws, which don’t seem to be going away.
One man who has continued to play in the middle of the park during those matches is the Celtic captain, Callum McGregor.
But Open Goal discussed how McGregor is viewed differently when the champions of Scotland aren’t clicking or when they are losing matches.
Callum McGregor to ‘blame’ if Celtic don’t play well
One man who was at Celtic when McGregor was coming through, and got a small taste of the big time, was Dylan McGeouch.
He thinks when ‘the team isn’t doing well’, the focus shifts towards the man with the armband, and he is the one to ‘blame’, as he told Open Goal.
But McGeouch wanted to make it clear that McGregor is ‘massive’ for Celtic, even if the spotlight gets put on him when the going gets tough.
“If the team isn’t doing well, then he always gets it, doesn’t he?” said McGeouch. “But if you take him out of that team, it would be huge. He is a big miss.
“I can see why, if Celtic aren’t getting the result, they probably blame him thinking, ‘oh, he goes back, he goes sideways a lot.’ All that kind of stuff.
“But he is massive for that team.”
Celtic results from the games McGregor has missed during the last three seasons
McGregor has played every game for Celtic this term, but there were periods of the previous campaign where he was absent for one reason or another.
The retired Scotland international doesn’t usually get injured, but looking back at the last three campaigns, when McGregor hasn’t played, how have the team performed?
- Games missed by McGregor: 19
- Games won without McGregor: 14
- Drawn: 1
- Lost: 4
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