Callum McGregor is the undeniable heartbeat of Celtic Football Club, but there is a growing concern that the Scottish champions are running their inspirational captain into the ground.
While McGregor’s relentless drive and ever-presence in the starting XI are testaments to his elite professionalism, the sheer volume of minutes he is being forced to play points to a much deeper, structural failing within the squad.
Scottish pundit and journalist Tom English has fiercely highlighted this dangerous dependency, shedding light on the alarming ‘feeling inside Celtic‘ regarding the recruitment team’s inability to source a capable deputy.
“This is the feeling of the club that they haven’t had someone or found someone who could do a lot of the things that Callum McGregor can do,” stated English.
“That’s a failing of the club. The burden on McGregor, as a club captain and a club that expects so much.”
Even though Celtic beat Rangers in the Scottish Cup over the weekend, the fact that Martin O’Neill’s side only had one shot at goal, and couldn’t even get on the ball without their skipper, said it all.
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McGregor, who turns 33 in June, has already clocked an astonishing 47 appearances this season, and his latest injury is a concern.
In an ideal world, the man in the Celtic Park dugout would be carefully managing McGregor’s workload, wrapping him in cotton wool during parts of the season.
However, as English brutally pointed out, Celtic have never been able to rest him during a campaign where the club have declined on and off the pitch.
The champions of Scotland have spent large parts of the campaign merely ‘surviving’ and ‘just getting by’ rather than dominating, as they have proved under Brendan Rodgers, O’Neill and Wilfried Nancy.
Nothing highlighted this glaring recruitment flaw more than McGregor being forced to play 88 minutes against lower-league Auchinleck Talbot to protect a fragile 1-0 lead in January.
It is a staggering burden for one player to carry, exposing a massive blind spot in the club’s long-term planning, and English was right to call it out on BBC Radio Scotland.
“Celtic play him a lot, always play him a lot, 40, 50, 60 games,” said English. “Pretty much every season for the last eight, nine, ten seasons. He’s played 47 already this season.
“He’s 32 and 33 in June. I would imagine Celtic wouldn’t want to play him as much in an ideal world. They would want to look after him a bit more. But they can’t because of the way they have been playing. They have been surviving in games. Just getting by. They need him out there.
“Even against Auchinleck Talbot, for goodness sake, they are 1-0 up 86, 87 minutes, and he is still on the pitch. 88 minutes he comes off, against Auchinleck Talbot. They can’t survive without him.
“This is the feeling of the club that they haven’t had someone or found someone who could do a lot of the things that Callum McGregor can do. That’s a failing of the club. The burden on McGregor, as a club captain and a club that expects so much. He’s banging out 55, 56, 57 games a season, and he is almost 33 years of age.”
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