Saints’ Cup shock proved to McGregor how special Celtic’s run of success was
Rangers’ Scottish Cup defeat at home to St Johnstone was one of the most-dramatic ties of recent times.
Steven Gerrard’s side were just seconds from clinching victory when Saints keeper, Zander Clark, went up for a corner from which he powered in a header.
Chris Kane turned the ball home to tee-up a penalty shoot-out success in which Clark was again the hero to send the Perth side into the semi-finals.
For Celtic midfielder, Callum McGregor – who hopes to help upset Rangers in the league at Ibrox this afternoon – the result underlined the scale of his own club’s achievement in winning 12 domestic trophies-in-a-row.
“To do what we did took huge amounts of guts, energy and actual performance levels,” said McGregor.
“To keep performing at that level for three, four, five years-in-a-row is so, so difficult to do.
“At any given moment, things can go wrong, and you saw that with such a freak goal from St Johnstone.
“How many times does the keeper go up in the last minute, and the ball just goes straight past them?
“The way that our boys, the management and the staff reacted in those moments . . . you think about going one behind to Hearts in the Treble-Treble Scottish Cup Final with 15-20 minutes to go.
“You somehow come back and win the game.
“That’s mental strength, it’s character, it’s belief.t’s all of those things.
“I don’t think anybody inside this building under-estimated how hard it was.
“For the guys who have experienced it and earned it, only they know how difficult it is to do. We lived it, the big pressure moments.
“The very first Invincible Treble Scottish Cup Final, there was a huge amount of pressure.
“The second one was maybe slightly easier. But there were tough times throughout that when we had to bounce back. Then with the Treble Treble, there was an enormous amount of pressure.
“We know how difficult it is, and hopefully now people outside of football – and outside of here – understand how difficult it is.”
Looking back to those successes gives McGregor confidence for the latest renewal of the derby and for what lies ahead next season.
“When you have the track record to prove it, you don’t suddenly become a bad player or a bad team overnight,” he said.
“There is probably going to be a dip at some point, so it’s about re-gathering your thoughts in that sense, taking the learning experiences. And once you wipe the slate clean at the end of the season, you go again after that.
“I’d much rather be in that position where I have all that experience behind me, and then try to bounce back the following year.”
The midfielder’s comments lend substance to John Kennedy’s conviction McGregor is going nowhere.
“I want to win. When you are younger, that is what you think about – winning things and qualifying for major tournaments,” he said.
“You are at a huge, huge club. If you had offered me that when I was five years old, I would have bitten your hand off.
Right now, though, Celtic have to do what they can to spoil Rangers’ party.
“We are on the other side of it, and we have to go and try to win the game to stop that happening,” said McGregor.
“I think in the last three games, we have created 45 chances and scored one goal. That tells you where we are at, and what we need to do.
“In any game of football, you have to take your chances, or you are going to pay the price for it.
“It is the big moments in games that swing the momentum, and there is a wee bit of luck involved in that as well.
“So we have to prepare properly, turn up, work hard for each other and then take the chances when they come.”