Callum McGregor

He covered Brooney really well and been the driving force for a number of years. But its absolutely catching up with him. He needs someone in there who, he was to Brown.

He needs rotated out a bit more. And on form currently, probably dropped. Captain or not, he's not immune from this.

Said it on the unpopular celtic opinions. We need to look for his replacement now. But, as he's Captain and way not priority position just now, he'll be run in to the ground meantime.

 

Iwata supporting him, or even sometimes replacing him seems a no-brainer to me.

What do managers of Celtic not see in Iwata that stops them from playing him?

 

Offering absolutely nothing just now, in defence or attack.

 

Lost a yard of pace, which he didn’t have much of anyway, due to playing about 150 games a season.

Nonetheless, I dread to think what we’d be like if he wasn’t in our midfield.

People wanting him dropped or rested should be careful what they wish for.

Taking the ball from your centre backs whilst getting pressed * out of isn’t as easy as it looks on the tele.

We’d be a far worse team with him out of it.

 

The concept of taking the ball from the centre backs is a tactical mistake. The process slows us down and has been countered many times since we are predictable.

 

Id b happier if he was

last night he spent the whole of the first half doing doggies back and forth in front of our back two shadowing they're players WHEN WE HAD THE BALL

Not once did he create an angle to receive the ball

 

Absolute * nonsense man. Every single word of it. Utter *.

 

lazy attempts at defending from him last night. The boy guendouzi was making them runs all night and not one of them could be bothered to track him and it eventually leads to a goal. Just jogging about he's really irritating me recently but it's alright cause he might call Barasic a shitebag in the next derby.

no point in calling for Iwata to get a start cause he won't get dropped.

 

Maybe others who commented the same on the match thread are also watching a different game as well

 

CALLUM MCGREGOR has urged the Celtic board to ‘help’ manager Brendan Rodgers in January as he tries to build a team capable of competing in European football.

Rodgers has consistently spoken of the need for quality additions to his Celtic squad since the summer, and he reiterated the point after watching his team crash out of European competition for the season with their 2-0 defeat to Lazio in the Stadio Olimpico on Tuesday evening.

Celtic went into the game without the likes of Reo Hatate, Daizen Maeda and Luis Palma, and their back-up cast proved unable to break the team’s wretched run at the top level.




Now, Celtic captain McGregor has backed Rodgers’ call for reinforcements, and he says he is sure that the club’s board will get behind his manager in January.

“We always need help,” McGregor said.

“If you ask any manager how many new players does he want, he will always say it’s as many as he can.

“And it’s the same for the players. We want as many good players coming through the door as we can. That builds competition in training and games all the time. And the level just accelerates from there.

“We want to continue to push as a club and as a group and I’m sure they will do that.

““I think they will [back him in the transfer window]. January is notorious for being the one where they can see how the first half of the season plays out.




And whatever we need, they have a good track record of doing that, in terms of backing the team and backing the manager.

“I am sure that’ll happen in January.”

McGregor does feel though that Celtic have been hard done by to only pick up a single point for their Champions League efforts so far this season, and he is determined to put a more positive slant on their campaign by closing it out with a win against Feyenoord in a fortnight.

“We feel we deserve to have more points than we do,” he said.

“So I think if we go and win the last game I don’t think it will be a surprise to anyone.

“We have played well enough throughout the competition to warrant more points.

“The last game gives us a chance to get a win and finish with more points that we did last year. That would show a bit of improvement.




There is all to play for every time you play for Celtic. There is pride there, we’re playing for the games no matter what. There is no doubt that we’ll be giving everything to try and win that one.

“Before that we have some big games. It’s a really busy period with every game massive between now and the next break. It’s full steam ahead.”
















TAKEN in isolation, Celtic’s defeat to Lazio on Tuesday night could almost be explained away. The Stadio Olimpico isn’t an easy place to go at the best of times, never mind when you are missing some of your most creative players in attack, and are having to rely on a host of fringe men.

But coming as it did as the 15th consecutive group stage match without victory – a record for a British club – and in the context of almost two decades now of such nights on the European stage for Celtic punctuated by the odd miraculous triumph, it points more to a longer-term underlying cause rather than short term player absences.

Perhaps the most frustrating thing for the Celtic fans who attended the game – apart from the fact many struggled to gain access to the stadium, and those who did had to run a Roman gauntlet to avoid being hit by flying pyrotechnics – is that the loss and the manner of it was entirely expected.

Even as the clock ticked towards the final 10 minutes, and Celtic were in the ascendency, there was always a feeling that the same old movie was about to be replayed. And so it proved.




The disparity between the finances of Celtic and the other teams in their Champions League section is obvious, but their policy of signing mostly ‘project’ players in the summer is a further impediment to their ability to compete in such company.

In fact, taking those factors into account, even captain Callum McGregor admits he isn’t surprised by the outcome, not only in this season’s Champions League, but going back 20 years or so.

“The run isn’t on this group,” McGregor said.

“It’s happened over a long period of time.

“Maybe people can look at the guys who have been here longer than others, and potentially label that at them. But it’s a top competition and teams are spending millions and millions to try and win this thing.

“So there is a level there and compared to our budgets it makes it difficult. Especially when we’re the type of club we want to be, where we are signing young talent, developing it, and selling it on.

“We have been like that, probably, for the last 15 to 20 years. So that maybe tells you this isn’t a big surprise.

“But the wish for the players is that when we get to these games we want to do well. We’re just stuck in that wee rut at the minute where we can’t get one. And the whole thing continues.

“But, listen, we’ll keep trying and we’ll keep coming back. We’re giving a good account of ourselves in the majority of the games so we’re not too far away.

“Maybe with just a little bit more quality at this level we can maybe do something.”

That line about the need for some added quality has been relayed by Celtic manager Brendan Rodgers on multiple occasions this season, and it was interesting to hear his captain echo those thoughts following the defeat in Rome.

It seems he too is keenly aware that Celtic are short in some key areas, and furthermore, that the club’s summer transfer dealings rather left them taking a water pistol to a gun fight.

As well as that, there was the cursing of their luck, which again deserted them at a key moment as a deflected shot fell to Ciro Immobile - of all people - in front of goal for Lazio to finally break Celtic’s resistance.



Not that McGregor was attempting to paint the defeat as a hard luck story, but there is some truth to the notion that some of their losses in the Champions League have been unfortunate, and that a break here or there could have put a more creditable complexion on their campaign.

“It was a sore one,” he said.

“It kind of followed the same pattern as the rest of the games, if I’m honest.

“We had good spells in the game and were then hit with that sucker-punch at the end.

“Listen, at some point we were going to have to open up. Maybe in different circumstances we could have played for the draw and seen the game out by not being too gung-ho to try and win it.

“But we had to win to try and go through. And when you do that, that can happen given they have a top-quality striker who comes on to score two goals.

“It’s just disappointing that it’s following much of the pattern. But I guess we can take positives, at least, from parts of the performance.

“I felt we were doing enough in the game. We could hear their fans getting frustrated and we had talked about that before the game.

“We felt the longer the game stayed at 0-0, we’d give ourselves a really good chance. And we could all feel that in the stadium.

“Really, if anyone was going to score, it was probably going to be us. They get a bit of a break too, with the boy scuffing the shot, and it doesn’t fall for us.

“We’ve probably not had one of those. Kyogo had a chance across goal, and if it’s similar, we get a tap-in. So, it’s small margins.

“Again, that’s been a story of this campaign. But ultimately it’s disappointing we went away with no points again.

“But I just feel we need that first win and the good feeling starts to come back. We will then maybe get more and more results.

“But right now, we’re maybe just at the stage where we’re not quite getting there.”

 

* it's bad now when you have the captain basically calling the board out too

 

Thought he was dreadful up until his equaliser. Could see the notable shift in tempo from him after that and I think he forced the players to raise their standards too.

Regardless, needs to find that extra gear more often because he's been sleeping far too often this season. Hopefully a big moment for him individually.

 

Callum, you'll need to put your boot into the * of Peter Lawwell if you want the manager backed. No hoping will do the trick. You saved us today, now save us for a good number of years by giving that board a roasting!

 

What a finish from him. He's needing that boot up the * from the manager as much as the rest of them, and it looks tonhave worked a treat. Big performance from him on Wednesday and we'll hopefully see him back ti his best going forward.

 

Aye, got to be tried further forward with Iwata behind..

 

440 appearances, 63 goals
22 first team trophies

 

No doubting his achievements and status as club legend like Broony, Forrest and Lenny Etc before him but like those there comes a time when they are just not good enough anymore. I don't think that time is now for Cal but there is no getting away from a serious dip in form since BR came in. I'm sure both are aware and need to sort it