CALLUM McGregor is confident that Celtic’s players are now executing Brendan Rodgers’ game plan – but the Parkhead captain has admitted they still need to develop a ruthless streak up front if they want to progress in the Champions League.
The Scottish champions, who enjoyed great success under former manager Ange Postecoglou and won a world-record eighth treble last season playing the Greek-Australian’s attacking football, struggled to adapt to Rodgers’ system early in the 2023/24 campaign.
However, the Glasgow giants have won their last five domestic fixtures and go into their difficult cinch Premiership game against Hearts at Tynecastle this afternoon intent on restoring their seven point lead at the top of the table.
McGregor is hopeful that Celtic have fully embraced the tactical changes which their new head coach has implemented – but feels that they still need to be more clinical in the final third to get a result against Atletico Madrid in their Group E encounter at Parkhead on Wednesday night.
“There are always a few difficulties when the group has been successful and you are coming off the back of a really successful season and there are changes,” he said.
“The system was great and there’s an ‘if it’s not broke don’t fix it’ kind of situation. But then the new manager wants to put his own stamp on the team and that’s probably where we were in the first phase.
“Now everybody is up to speed fitness and football wise. You can see the performances are getting slicker and slicker as we go and the team idea has been really good.
“It’s just about us trying to maximise that as much as we can. There is a busy period coming up and we want to win every game if we can.”
McGregor added: “We are probably still getting there up front. In the game against Kilmarnock, I thought we could go 4-1 or 5-1 with the chances we created. Maybe sliding the ball across for a tap in kills the game.
“So there are still little moments within the matches that we need to just keep reinforcing because if we can put teams away early then it gives us a more comfortable game.
“So although there is a lot of good stuff, if we can hit three, four or five we can get the team really motoring. We will continue to keep working on it and hopefully we can get there.”
Celtic skipper McGregor was devastated when Lazio scored a winner in the fifth minute of injury-time in their Champions League game at Parkhead earlier this month because he felt his team, who had taken the lead through Kyogo Furuhashi in the first half and then dominated the second, deserved at least a point.
He is keen for the Scottish champions to improve their sharpness in attack against Atletico and give their chances of reaching the knockout rounds a boost.
“With 20 minutes to go, it looked like only one team could win the game,” he said. “Then they have a moment of quality after what is maybe half a mistake. It is not a big mistake, but the boy breaks away, the pass is great, the cross is brilliant and the finish is brilliant.
“That is the quality you are playing against when one moment can totally turn the game on its head. That is the difference at that level: it is one chance, one goal, or two chances, one goal. We need to try and hit that kind of conversion rate ourselves if we want to take the next step.”
McGregor continued: “If we have any ambition of coming out of the group I think we have to take something out of the game. In the main, our performance against Lazio was good and had we taken anything from it, it would have completely changed the look of the group.
“I think everybody in the group understands that and they are hurting from that. It is now fairly obvious that to stay alive we need to take something on Wednesday. I think it can be a big night for us.”
