‘Team of individuals’ – Callum McGregor delivers brutal Celtic verdict after Rangers defeat | OneFootball

Callum McGregor has admitted Celtic looked like a “team of individuals” during their damaging 3-0 defeat to Rangers at Ibrox.

13th September 2026; Ibrox; Scottish League Cup Football, Rangers versus Celtic; Callum McGregor of Celtic arrives off the team bus. Photograph by Vagelis Georgariou

Dan Neil and Kevin Kelsy were on target as Derek McInnes’ side dumped Celtic out of the Premier Sports Cup, with Martin O’Neill’s men managing just one shot on target.

Coming after their Champions League collapse against LASK, McGregor admits Celtic’s failure to perform in another major fixture is becoming a serious concern.

“I think the difference between the two sides was you’ve seen a team and then you’ve seen a team of individuals,” McGregor said post-match via Daily Record. “Rangers were a team and you could see that. We looked like a team of individuals that wanted to do our own thing and play when we got the ball, not necessarily run when you don’t have the ball.

“That’s the one thing you can’t do when you come here is just don’t run. You can’t defend with six players, it’s impossible. We’re trying to get the message to everyone that we have to be a team.

“We have to be the team that we want to be. We need to find a way to do that quickly because we lost a big game in LASK. We lost another big game today and it’s not acceptable.

“If we want to be a good Celtic team then 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.

“We’ve put ourselves under pressure. We need to respond on Thursday and we need to respond on Sunday.”

McGregor conceded Celtic were second best across the pitch and rarely looked capable of recovering after falling behind.

“We were poor in pretty much every area of the game,” McGregor continued. “Once we went behind in the game we never looked like we were recovering really to be honest. 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 then we never really looked like getting back in it to be honest.”

After Neil struck Rangers’ third in the 75th minute, McGregor admitted his focus switched towards preventing an even heavier derby defeat.

“You don’t want fours and fives for sure,” he explained. “As soon as the goal went in, then I’m saying to Cam [Cameron Carter-Vickers] and Scalesy [Liam Scales], ‘Look, no more goals, we have to just tighten this up’.

“Of course, we always want to get back in the game. And we always want to be a team that, even at 3-0 down, you still want to have a chance, but you have to understand the circumstance you’re in as well. If it starts to run at fours and fives, then you’re talking about a different ballgame.”

O’Neill described the defeat as a “wake-up call”, but McGregor believes the warning signs had already been evident in Celtic’s performances this season.

“You can see it, 100 per cent,” he added. “You can see it, especially for the guys that have been here for a long time and the guys that have been watching Celtic for a long time.

“You see the team and how it functions and how it performs and how it behaves. And it’s just been too bitty. So we have to find a way to bring it back and bridge that gap and start to bring it together. Because if we don’t, then you’ll have more days like this.”

Five Celtic players made their first derby starts at Ibrox, and McGregor accepts O’Neill’s new arrivals are still adapting to the demands and expectations at the club.

“There are some new guys in, trying to get them bedded in, trying to get them to understand the system, how we want the Celtic team to look,” McGregor stated. “There have been shades of it this season but not enough. So eventually the penny has to drop, we have to get there. Because you can’t just turn it on and off, it’s impossible.

“Especially when you come to venues like this. You have to be good against the ball and when you get it, you have to be the version of Celtic that we want to be. And we know it gets us success.”

Asked how Celtic can rediscover that level, the captain stressed that improvement must come quickly.

“It’s reinforcement, it’s training, it’s coaching, it’s all of these things,” he said. “The guys are given good information. We’ve been doing this a long time. You need to bring it together because it’s two big games that we’ve lost.

“And you probably won’t get many more before the pressure really ramps up. And we have to be honest about that, let’s not shy away from it. So we have to fix it.”

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