Celtic skipper Callum McGregor has issued his verdict on his side's collapse in the Old Firm on Sunday. The Hoops were well beaten in every phase of play, failing to show the right level of effort and application that required a maximum level of both.
Rangers had Celtic's number from the word go, and Martin O'Neill couldn't get ahold of his team. No solutions were found, with Celtic struggling to get out of their own half throughout, and while Celtic figures are talking about chances, the Hoops had very few quality chances, and it would have been less surprising if it had been 5-0 rather than Celtic getting anything from the game.
Captail McGregor was, of course, left unimpressed by the efforts of his side, and indeed his own efforts, with the Hoops midfield having struggled to get any sort of grip on the game. It seemed as though Mika Baur never touched the ball, which was a strange sight after seein the German dominate Wednesday night's game.
“Once we went behind in the game we never looked like recovering to be honest,” McGregor told the BBC.
“We had a couple of good moments early on if we take them it’s a different game. And we know that coming here you’re not going to get hundreds and hundreds of chances. You get moments in the game where if you take them it can totally change the outlook of the game.
“I felt like once we went one behind we never really looked like getting back in it, to be honest.”
The veteran midfielder added: “To be honest it wasn’t under massive pressure either, it was quite careless and slack. When you think we have half a foot in the game we keep turning the ball over and it’s a counter-attack which is what they want and are good at.
“Was it one of the toughest times I’ve had out there? Yeah because it wasn’t us. I think the difference between the two sides was you seen the team and you seen a team of individuals as well.
“Rangers were a team and you could see that. We looked like a team of individuals who wanted to do our own thing and play when we got the ball, not necessarily run when you don’t. That’s what you can’t do when you come here, you’ve got to run. You can’t defend with six players, it’s impossible.
“We’re trying to get the message to everyone that we need to be a team, to be the team we want to be. And we need to find a way to do that quickly because we lost a big game in LASK and another one today. It’s not acceptable.
“There will be other big games in the season and eventually you have to win one if you want to be considered a good team. We’ve put ourselves under pressure and we need to respond on Thursday and then on Sunday and we quickly need to get to the level.”
“I’m not going to shy away from that because everyone’s going to be talking about it, let’s be fair. So if we want to be a good Celtic team we have to win the big games, that’s one thing we’ve always done is win big games and turned up when it mattered. So far this season we’ve been bitty in games and we need to fix it.”
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