Celtic Captain Callum McGregor Calls for Team Unity After Derby Defeat

Callum McGregor did not bother dressing it up. Celtic, he said, looked like “a team of individuals”. Rangers looked like a team.

On derby day, in this city, that accusation cuts deeper than any tactical critique. It goes right to effort, attitude, and what it means to wear the shirt.

“You can’t defend with six players”

The Celtic captain’s verdict was as blunt as it was damning. He saw a side that wanted the ball but didn’t want the work that comes without it.

“Rangers were a team and you could see that,” McGregor said. “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.

“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.”

At Celtic, talent is a given. Application is non‑negotiable. The captain made it clear that some of his team-mates fell short of that most basic requirement.

Big games, big failures

The defeat at Ibrox did not arrive in isolation. McGregor joined the dots immediately, linking it to the damaging loss against LASK in Linz.

“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,” he 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.”

The manager had called this a wake-up call. McGregor’s response was pointed: how many alarms do they need?

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

Two games. Two chances to prove this isn’t the start of a slide.

“We were poor in pretty much every area”

McGregor did not spare the collective. He ran through the performance and found almost nothing to protect.

“We were poor in pretty much every area of the game,” he said. “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.”

The accusation hung in the air: after going behind, Celtic never truly looked like they believed in a comeback. For this club, that is close to heresy.

One player did escape the general criticism. Colby Donovan, probably the lowest‑paid player on the pitch, emerged with credit for his effort in a game that badly exposed some of his better‑rewarded team-mates.

From damage to damage limitation

By the time the third Rangers goal went in, the contest was gone. McGregor’s mindset changed from chasing the impossible to limiting the embarrassment.

“You don’t want fours and fives for sure,” he said. “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.”

At Celtic, that “different ballgame” is not just a scoreline. It is a full‑blown crisis.

The captain knows it. The support knows it. Performances like that do not pass without consequence.

“At Celtic you have to deliver or you won’t last long,” was the clear message between the lines. You can’t hide, you can’t coast, you can’t point fingers elsewhere. You deliver, or you’re moved aside.

“Too bitty” – and running out of excuses

McGregor has been around long enough to recognise when a team is functioning and when it is only pretending to.

“You can see it, 100 per cent,” he said. “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.”

There are new players. There is a system to learn. That much he accepted, but only up to a point.

“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.

“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.”

The message was clear: information and coaching are not the problem.

“It’s reinforcement, it’s training, it’s coaching, it’s all of these things,” McGregor 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.”

No hiding place now

The Celtic support can tolerate poor form, bad luck, even the odd tactical misstep. What they will not accept is a lack of effort. Not tracking runners. Not pressing. Not running.

If anyone in this squad is not prepared to put in the work, the solution is simple: the stand, not the pitch.

And now comes the real test. Two huge fixtures this week. A European response on Thursday. Rangers at Celtic Park on Sunday, with 60,000 watching and remembering every detail of what happened at Ibrox – and every word their captain has since spoken.

They have been warned. The excuses have been stripped away. Time to find a team, or face the consequences.