CALLUM MCGREGOR says that everyone at Celtic already knew the title was far from wrapped up, after the champions offered a glimmer of hope to rivals Rangers by dropping points at home to Motherwell.
David Turnbull’s late penalty looked to have handed Celtic a huge three points against a stubborn Motherwell outfit, but the visitors hit back almost immediately as Jon Obika’s header gave Stuart Kettlewell’s men a morale-boosting draw.
The Celtic captain was gutted to have thrown away two points to such a cheap goal, with Rangers now having the chance to cut their lead at the top of the table to six points with a win over Aberdeen on Sunday lunchtime. The Ibrox side would also still have a game in hand.
When asked if their slip up had shown they were still in a title race, McGregor said: “Yeah. Football doesn't work like that.
"You find yourself seven points clear early doors and everybody thinks, 'That's it wrapped up'.
"It's never ever like that. There are so many twists and turns. I say it every year, it’s the team that deals with disappointment best that will go on and win the league. There are too many variables and games of football to be played.
“The team that bounces back from disappointments and defeats will win the title.
“We need to make sure that, internally, we stay strong and give everything we’ve got, especially in this really important period.
"We normally see games out really well. That's the biggest disappointment as we had to work really hard to score and then we conceded two minutes later. That kills you at any level of football.
"We have to be disappointed but we have a busy period so we can't beat ourselves up too much.
"There is too much football to be played in this period. If you beat yourself up too much, one bad result can lead to another and before you know it, it snowballs.
"We have to get rid of that and dust ourselves down.”
What was doubly frustrating for Celtic was the fact that they had earlier missed yet another penalty in the game, Luis Palma the sinner this time as Liam Kelly pushed away his tame effort low to his right.
It was the third penalty Celtic have missed in the Premiership already this season, and McGregor is a little concerned that he might be next in line to step up to the spot.
“It’s getting to the stage where I might need to put my hand up, isn’t it?” he said.
“It’s a really important part of the game and we’ve missed too many already.
“We’ve got some good penalty takers. David is a natural, Luis is good at set-plays and big Oh is also good. We’ve got the quality in there but it’s maybe a concentration thing.
“It’s something we have to look at, for sure. When games are tight, those are the things that can decide it for you.”
Celtic don’t have too much time to dwell on the result, with a trip to Rome to face Lazio on Champions League duty looming on Tuesday evening.
McGregor will lead his team out at the Stadio Olimpico with the encouragement of what happened the last time he was part of a Celtic side who played there in 2019, and a desire to make amends for what happened against the Italians at Celtic Park in October.
“It’ll be a big challenge at Champions League level, so we have to raise our game,” he said.
“If we want anything out of it, we’ll have to perform at our maximum.
“It’s an exciting fixture and we feel like we owe them one after what happened here.
“It’s a brilliant stadium having played there previously and we’re looking forward to it.
“There aren’t too many of us left from last time but personally I feel a good connection with that result.
“It’ll be a totally different game but we can go there and win, absolutely.
“We’ve shown in the group already that if we’re on song, at our level and don’t make mistakes, we can win.
“We should have won the game here.”
