Callum McGregor: We aim to play our game and get the right result against St Mirren

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Celtic F.C.

·28 February 2025

Callum McGregor: We aim to play our game and get the right result against St Mirren

Celtic head to Paisley this Saturday evening for a vital league game against St Mirren on the back of an impressive 5-1 midweek win over Aberdeen.

The Hoops are 13 points clear at the top of the Premiership table, and will be looking for their third win over St Mirren this season, following the two previous 3-0 victories last August and then last month.

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Callum McGregor is looking forward to the game, and regardless of the challenges that St Mirren present, he knows the Celtic players will be ready for the 90 minutes ahead.

“Our game model and the way we want to play the game is to try and take as much physical contact out of the game as much as we can,” he said, “and try and gain territory and make them chase the ball, so that is the template of the way we want to play football.

“For sure, there will be moments in the game when you have to stand up and win your duels and win your battles, and defend your box, and in the main we’ve done that really well.

“Although we’re a really good football side we can also mix it as well, so we’ll need that again tomorrow again for sure.”

St Mirren lost 3-1 to Hearts at Tynecastle in midweek, which followed an impressive 2-0 victory over Rangers at Ibrox last weekend.

The previous meeting between Celtic and St Mirren in Paisley came back in August when Callum McGregor opened the scoring in the 3-0 win, while in the 3-0 win at Celtic Park, Nicolas Kuhn scored a double and Auston Trusty scored his first and, to date, only goal for Celtic.

Regardless of what has happened before, the Hoops captain knows the Paisley side will be tough opponents, and on a pitch which St Mirren manager Stephen Robinson hopes will be a leveler on the day, given its current poor quality.

“They’re in good form, they’ll be feeling good about themselves and they’ll try to start the game positively,” he said.

“So it’s just the same message for us – we approach every game the same way. Total respect to the opponent and then we try and pick them apart within the game and, ultimately, we’re there to win the game. Hopefully we do a lot right and we get the result that we want.

“You get to this point in the season, right through December, January and February, when the pitches aren’t great anyway, so it’s a challenge but we try and take all the excuses out of the game.

“We’re good, technical footballers so that’s the bit we pride ourselves on, and if the pitch is poor, then it’s a challenge for us and we want to show that we can still play on that type of surface so we’ve done it multiple times this season.

'If you think back to the Ross County game, there was still frost on the pitch at that point and we played ever so well.'

“Like I said, we don’t want to be using that as an excuse. Yes, it might play a little bit of a factor but our job is to find a way to win the game in all those circumstances.”

And following the announcement earlier today that away supporters will be at the two remaining Glasgow derbies this season, at Celtic Park on March 16 and Ibrox after the split, the Celtic captain said: “It’s a step forward from where we’ve been and it’ll add to the atmosphere, the game and everything else.

“Let’s hope that the experience is a good one and we can see where we can get to with that but, for sure, I think it’s always better when there are both sets of supporters in the stadium.”