In just over three weeks’ time, Callum McGregor hopes to be holding the Premiership trophy aloft once again. A few days later, he might well reacquaint himself with the Scottish Cup.
Despite a season when the blows have rained down hard at times, Celtic are somehow still standing and still swinging.
While emerging with a double from a campaign of considerable tumult might well turn out to be the most satisfying denouement of McGregor’s storied career, he’ll see no value in airbrushing all that’s happened to this point from history even if it comes to pass.
When a side has lost eight matches by the split, has had three different managers across four spells and seen its quality diluted, only the most naive and deluded would take silverware to be a sign that all is well.
Irrespective of how this all unfolds, from top to bottom, Celtic is a club in need of some major introspection and a serious shake-up.
‘I think you have to continue to push and be the best version of Celtic that we can be,’ McGregor stated.
Callum McGregor has endured a frustrating season as Hearts attempt to seize their crown
‘Obviously, then you have to trust the guys who have the qualifications, who know how to run football clubs, who are in the positions to do the job. You have to give them that trust to do the job properly.
‘Everyone looks at the football department and says: ‘Right, okay, he’s accountable, he’s accountable, he’s accountable”. It has to be the same throughout the whole club.’
McGregor is clear on all of this. Even if his side somehow come up trumps in the coming weeks, his view will not be compromised.
‘Things have happened this season which probably shouldn’t have happened,’ he added. ‘Whatever way you want to look at it, as soon as you have a poor season, you need to respond.
‘I think we’ve probably sat here before having won a treble or won a double and I’ve still said that we need to respond because it’s just that type of club where the success is always demanded, that you always have to be at the highest level.
‘The minute you drop under that, there’s somebody wanting to take a pop at you. That’s just the nature of the beast.
‘Where we’ve been throughout the season, there’s been a couple of low points. It’s hopefully building back up now to having a good finish.
McGregor was forthright when discussing what has to change at Parkhead this summer
‘But we can’t then just say: ‘Right, okay, we managed to survive that, everything’s great, let’s just keep it as it is”.
‘I think there has to be a continual push to be better, to have as good a squad as you can have, pushing in all the different areas of the club to try and make us an elite-level football club.
‘Because that’s where we want to be. We want to be in the Champions League, we want to be winning the league, we want to be winning the cups.
‘That ambition can’t change. You now have to double down on that and say: ‘Okay, we need to make a statement here as a football club”. And hopefully that brings the feeling back alive again.
‘Hopefully, we can do our bit on the pitch and finish with two trophies. But there also has to be something to back that up as well.’
That’s shorthand for those at the helm having a vision of what Celtic can and should be and a plan of how to get them there.
Identifying the right man to succeed Martin O’Neill is the priority. That individual then needs to be supported financially and with an infrastructure which befits a club of this vast scale.
McGregor has been at Celtic for 25 years and enjoys a strong connection with supporters
But just as the narrow defeat to Bayern Munich in last year’s Champions League shows how quickly a club can go backwards, McGregor also believes that it demonstrates how quickly things can turn the other way.
‘Definitely,’ said the skipper. ‘This is the one thing about Celtic, it does always respond. It’s one of these club.
‘When Moussa Dembele left, it was “how to do you replace Moussa?” Then Odsonne Edouard came in.
‘Then when he left, it was “how do you replace Odsonne?” And Kyogo comes in. Then it was “how do you replace Kyogo?” So, there’s always another superstar in the making.
‘It seems all doom and gloom just now but we’re maybe only five weeks away from turning that around. Then, all of a sudden, bang, everyone is back.
‘Hopefully we’re back in the Champions League and then everyone is asking “what happened there?” It can very, very quickly change.
‘We just have to aim to be as good as we can be in every area that we can. Can we sign the best players that we can in each position? That’ll obviously give you the best chance of getting to the Champions League.
McGregor concedes major changes will have to take place if the club are to get back on track
‘I want the club to push, I want to push.’
Despite rumours of rejoining Brendan Rodgers in Saudi Arabia still swirling, McGregor wants to be around to see that happen. And provided he sees tangible evidence of the reboot he feels is required, he shall.
‘It becomes part of your DNA,’ McGregor said. ‘You see football a certain way and it’s hard to unsee it when you have been here for so long. It’s stuff like playing in another strip…
‘It’s something to be proud of as well because it is such a demanding football club. To do that for 10 years, it’s a tough environment.’
Aside from the Covid season in which pretty much everything which could have gone wrong did go wrong, this has been the most demanding he’s experienced.
That Celtic are still dreaming of the double almost flies in the face of all logic yet there they are, in another cup final and steeling themselves for five league games of monumental importance.
‘I don’t want to speak too soon, but it’s like you’re one result away really from being top of the league and being right in the conversation,’ McGregor said.
‘So, despite all the noise, all the circus this year, we’re still only three points behind the leaders.
‘We really believe in ourselves, we really back ourselves. Let’s see what happens.
‘It’s not been an amazing season in terms of style and performance and all these things, but hopefully we can still finish with two trophies which is ultimately what matters.’
