The moment Callum knew he belonged
I finally felt worthy of the Celtic jersey after Bayern goal, says McGregor
Scoring in that game helped me establish myself. They are a top team
CALLUM McGregor is not the first player at a major club to go out on loan and live to tell the tale, but it is fair to say survival stories such as his are the exception rather than the rule.
Already out of his teens when he agreed to join Notts County for five months in 2013, the experience of so many who had gone before suggested this was probably the beginning of the end for him as a Celtic player.
Some simply have too much talent to be ignored, though. Ronny Deila liked what he saw when he first set eyes on the midfielder and was rewarded for the faith he placed in him with a scoring debut against KR Reykjavik in a Champions League qualifier.
Despite signing a long-term contract and having an eye for goal on the big occasion, McGregor’s versatility often worked against him thereafter. And, despite surpassing the 100-game barrier, he remained something of a bit-part player.
These, however, are changed days. Markedly so.
Even the uninitiated now surely recognise there are no more important cogs in the machine Brendan Rodgers has built than the self-effacing Glaswegian.
Putting an exact timeline on when that moment finally arrived is difficult, but McGregor is willing to hazard a guess.
‘The Bayern Munich game (last October) and my goal was probably a big moment,’ he said.
‘As a player, you always want to go out and impress in the big games — and Bayern Munich are one of the top teams in the world.
‘So, to score in that game gave me the belief to go out and think: “Right, you are worthy of playing here, you are worthy of the big tag, you are playing for Celtic”.
‘My confidence grew after that, I started to perform and play in big games and affect big games, as well.’
Not only did McGregor break the double-figure target all central midfielders aspire to by two goals last season, but, remarkably, he hit the net in each of the five competitions his side were involved in.
With Stuart Armstrong last night sealing his move to Southampton, there is nothing to suggest McGregor’s opportunities to go from strength to strength will diminish.
After the longest of struggles to get where he is now, he is entitled to briefly admire the view. Not for a second, though, does he feel he has arrived at the summit.
‘Even though it is in my head that I finished last season really well and scored some big goals, this is the sort of club that just keeps you hungry all the time,’ explained the Scotland midfielder.
‘You still want to come back into pre-season and impress and try to do all the same things. In football, if you don’t do that, you very quickly get forgotten about.
‘So it’s pretty much more of the same for me. In the last few pre-seasons, I’ve come in and worked really hard and tried to kick on. So this time it is exactly the same — work hard, keep fit and try to impress the manager.’
McGregor is grounded and engaging but mercifully short on false modesty. He knows he is in an entirely different place now from those early days under Deila.
‘I feel as if I am established now,’ he said. ‘If you’re doing everything in training and doing well in the games, then you know that you are in with a good shout.’
He is no stranger to some independent thinking, either. In an age where some players seem to value their social media accounts more than oxygen, McGregor sees little point in expending time and energy on something that may lead to nothing but bother.
‘I’m pretty much a private guy,’ he explained. ‘When I’m doing my football, I’m working and that’s it.
‘I know it’s modern-day football, it’s modern-day life. Just about everybody in our changing room is on social media, but I just feel like keeping my private life to myself.
‘When I’m away from it, I have a small circle of people that I really trust and I think that’s the way it should stay.
‘I don’t think you should get ahead of your station and start posting things on social media. It’s just not my style. I don’t do it and I think it has worked for me so far, so why change it?
‘My life is public 95 per cent of the time, so, when you have time off, you want to enjoy it with people that you are close to.’
Who’s to argue with his rationale? an ardent preacher of the need for his players to be 24/7 athletes, rodgers’ trust in the player is absolute.
The synergy between them has been evident over the past two years. McGregor recognises that the former Liverpool manager has helped take his game to a whole new level.
‘Probably my confidence is better,’ he reflected. ‘The manager has come in and, tactically, we are miles ahead of where we were. We are fitter, as well.
‘You can see that 90 per cent of the players have kicked on and gone to another level. It is the exact same for me: I’ve gone from way down there to way up here in terms of every aspect of my game.
‘There is that confidence side of it, too, where I now know that I can walk on to a pitch and affect big games.’
McGregor would never knowingly bad mouth Deila, but it is a plain fact that he believes rodgers has simply got the players operating at something close to their optimum level.
‘There is the tactical development among all the players so that, when we play our system, we all know that this is what we do, this is how we press,’ he continued.
‘It means that, when we do go and press as a team, then everybody is in the right area of the pitch.
‘The manager always likes us to express ourselves, but within a structure whereby everybody knows exactly what is happening. ‘This has probably been the biggest change in the team, the tactical ideas that we have.’ some managers get their message across via the stick. rodgers prefers the carrot. ‘He is always positive,’ insisted McGregor. ‘Every day you come in, it is always about how can we get better? ‘It is never a negative. It is always, okay, that game was fine, but next game let’s be better. ‘You can see the respect we have for him. When he is watching training, you will go that extra bit for him and you know that you will get that back off him. I think there is that trust from the players.’
I am a really private guy. Social media isn’t my style