He's not the kind guy to give it the big Get it Right Up Yez. Even if he must have been sorely tempted.
It’s simply not Callum McGregor’s style and he resisted the temptation to put the boot into poor Fashion Sakala when he stood inside Hampden last night clutching the League Cup trophy. But the Celtic captain did prove to be a man of his word. McGregor said in the build-up he’d leave the trash talk and do whatever talking he wanted to do on the National Stadium surface yesterday afternoon.
And the ‘other mob’ turned out to be just too good for Rangers. And as for the Ibrox striker’s claim his team were better – there was a shiny prize tucked under the Celtic skipper’s arm to prove otherwise. “Exactly,” McGregor said: “As a club we want to do our talking on the pitch and I think we did that. More often than not you hear these comments coming out before big games but it’s important for us to block it out. You can’t affect what anyone else is saying or doing. The gaffer said it doing the week – we only listen to ourselves. The only voices we need are our own and his. We continue to push each other and do our talking on the pitch when it matters. Good teams win trophies and they win them consistently. That’s the be all and end all in football.
“You’re tasked to win and judged when you don’t win. If you want to last a long time at these clubs you have to be successful when the trophies are being handed out.”
McGregor now has 18 of them on his mantelpiece at home but the defeated opponents didn’t hang about to see him lift his latest. It wasn’t lost on some Celtic supporters the fact the Rangers squad chose to go straight up the tunnel rather than hanging around to congratulate the winners.
But McGregor said: “I don’t want to talk about that. We’re just happy we won the cup and we did it in our style and the way we wanted to play the game.
“We leave what other clubs do to them, we can’t affect it, I just think it’s important to be humble when you win and show that humility.
“You do the same when you lose and the next time you try to put it right. That’s all you can do in football.”
McGregor had more important things to concern him about last night – like celebrating yet another final win. The midfielder – who was at his outstanding best at Hampden – has now competed in 15 finals for Celtic as a youth and a first team star.
And he’s won the lot. McGregor said: “It’s not a bad record, is it? They all matter but this one did feel something special.
It was his third trophy as skipper but his first after an epic Old Firm showdown. And McGregor added: “I think this one is up there as one of the sweetest.
“When you get to finals you’re desperate to win. Throw into them the fact that it’s Rangers and it goes up
another notch, it was nice to do it the way we did as well, I thought we were outstanding in the first half.
"We played some terrific football. In the second half we had to dig in and show a different side but overall I was delighted for the players.”
That was what perhaps pleased McGregor the most. Celtic were the ones forcing the issue, hogging the ball
and creating all the chances for an hour.
But then the game flipped and the Hoops had to roll the sleeves up, McGregor led from the front and he said: “We had to show different sides but that’s football, especially in finals. Every single final I’ve played in the opposition have had spells in the games and we’ve had to come through it.
“You gave to find a way. You can’t always be dominant for 90 minutes and when the game games you need to find a way to get back into the games.
“The subs really did that or us. They came on and they understood what was required, they were outstanding and really helped us over the line.
“It was excellent for us to really turn up in a showpiece game and play like we did. That was maybe the next stage of our development, come here and really take the game to them.
“For an hour we were outstanding. I don’t think they won the ball back once in the press, that tells you how good we were and we could maybe have been up two or three at half time if we were a bit more clinical.
“The second half was slightly different but all aspects of the game were pleasing.”
McGregor knows what’s coming next. The League Cup is in the cabinet and Celtic have a commanding nine-point lead in the Premiership with a Scottish Cup quarter-final against Hearts on the horizon.
The playmaker already has four Trebles on his CV but he’s not clearing space on that mantelpiece for another just yet. McGregor said: “We hear it every time!
" But we don’t talk about it. We want to focus on celebrating this one and then we’ll be back in and the preparation will be for St Mirren at the weekend.
“A nine-point lead is only good if you win your games. We’ll get back to work and keep driving it home until someone tells us to stop.”
