“You have to be the version of Celtic that we want to be,” Callum McGregor | OneFootball

Callum McGregor surveyed the wreckage of Celtic’s dreadful performance at Ibrox yesterday and his candid comments are as worrying as the way this Celtic ‘team’ played against a side that has not had its troubles to seek this season…

13th September 2026; Ibrox, Scottish League Cup, Rangers versus Celtic; Sam Johnstone of Celtic checks his gloves after Dan Neil of Rangers shoots and scores in the 75th minute to make it 3-0 to Rangers. Photo Vagelis Georgariou

The Celtic captain was at least frank in his assessment, saying much the same as most Celtic fans, outside the paid happy clappers who jump in on any fan media post that offers a fair and reasonable assessment of the shocking showing from a Celtic group, who even Callum McGregor admitted were not a ‘team’.

He explained the point perfectly.

“I think the difference between the two sides was you’ve seen a team and then you’ve seen a team of individuals,” the Celtic captain said. “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.

And worse was to follow as he pointed the figure at the collective group on the park accusing them of being reluctant to run. They’ll not be reluctant to collect their hefty salaries every month so the very least we should expect is maximum effort, especially in a game of such importance to their employer and indeed the support who ultimately pay their wages.

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

“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,” Calmac said.

“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,” he said.

13th September 2026; Ibrox; Scottish League Cup Football, Rangers versus Celtic; Dan Neil of Rangers shoots and scores in the 75th minute to make it 3-0 to Rangers. Photo Vagelis Georgariou

The manager talked about the result – and the performance – being a wake up call but surely they’ve already had that in the Champions League fiasco in Linz against LASK?

“We’ve put ourselves under pressure,” the Celtic captain admitted. “We need to respond on Thursday and we need to respond on Sunday.”

The Celtic support can forgive a great deal but NOT a lack of effort. If there are players not prepared to put in the work then sit them in the stand. The skipper continued with his assessment by admitting that the team was poor pretty much in everywhere in the team, although an honourable exception should be made for Colby Donovan, probably the lowest paid player on the pitch yesterday.

13th September 2026; Ibrox. Scottish League Cup, Rangers versus Celtic; Colby Donovan of Celtic challenges Djeidi Gassama of Rangers. Photo Vagelis Georgariou

“We were poor in pretty much every area of the game,” the Celtic captain admitted. “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.”

13th September 2026; Ibrox, Scottish League Cup Football, Rangers versus Celtic; Rangers and Celtic players react on the pitch. Photo Vagelis Georgariou

Or in other words, the team had chucked it. After the third goal went in the game was a lost cause and McGregor’s priority at that stage was to shut up shop to prevent any further damage.

“You don’t want fours and fives for sure,” he admitted. “As soon as the goal went in, then I’m saying to Cam and Scalesy, ‘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.”

13th September 2026; Ibrox, Scottish League Cup Football, Rangers versus Celtic; Mika Baur of Celtic on the ball. Photo Vagelis Georgariou

The players aren’t kidding anyone on with a performance like that. At Celtic you have to deliver or you won’t last long. You can’t hide, you can’t coast, you can’t blame anyone else. You have to deliver, collectively and also as an individual and in the latter point only Donovan gets any credit.

“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,” McGregor admitted.

Searching around for some reasons why such a performance was allowed to occur, the Celtic captain has been around the block long enough to know what it’s all about and the current situation is far from satisfactory.

“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,” he said. “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.

13th September 2026; Ibrox, Scottish League Cup Football, Rangers versus Celtic; Camilo Duran of Celtic and Nicolas Raskin of Rangers on the ball. Photo Vagelis Georgariou

“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.”

Calmac added: “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.”

13th September 2026; Ibrox Scottish League Cup Football, Rangers versus Celtic; Callum McGregor of Celtic Colby Donovan of Celtic and Liam Scales of Celtic. Photo Vagelis Georgariou

And fix it they must and quickly as there are two huge games this week, including the Rangers at Celtic Park on Sunday and there will be 60,000 Celtic supporters at the game, well aware of what happened yesterday and also of the Celtic captain’s frank and brutally honest comments about what happened at Ibrox yesterday.

The Celtic support can forgive a great deal but not a lack of effort. Time to deliver Bhoys.

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