Callum McGregor ought to know by now that Celtic are never going to be the best version of themselves under the current regime. That’s been well established and it’s part of the reason why he’s got to be leaving in the summer.
To be the club they should be, there needs to be a concerted effort to address their frankly appalling record in Europe dating back a good 20 years.
It’s a stat trotted out more often than the price of Brent crude oil during times of conflict, but it’s impossible to avoid the fact they haven’t won a knockout-round tie in any form of UEFA competition since 2004.
Sadly, the messaging from the top remains more about destroying expectation on that front rather than even managing it.
Ross Desmond, son of major shareholder Dermot, was clear at the chaotic — and abruptly disbanded — AGM in November.
Anyone accusing Celtic of not having kicked on in Europe since reaching the UEFA Cup final in 2003 was ignoring ‘the enormous change in the financial landscape of football’. Being in a smaller league was just too much of a challenge to justify spending proper money on having a go at doing something at that level.
Callum McGregor’s ambitions seem at odds with those running Celtic
In a meeting with the Celtic Fans Collective just before Desmond’s disastrous intervention, CEO Michael Nicholson expressed the view that performances in Europe in recent years had been ‘satisfactory’ — purely because the club had made it to group-stage football in 19 of 20 seasons.
Even manager Martin O’Neill appears to have been infected by the chronic lack of ambition. At the end of his initial return as manager, before The Madness of Wilfried Nancy, he spoke passionately about the need to compete properly in Europe.
‘You want to be strong in European football because that’s what was set in 1967. And that, I’m afraid, is what it’s all about,’ he opined. Fast forward to the 4-1 hosing at home to VfB Stuttgart in the Europa League play-off round during his second spell at the helm and the message was rather different.
‘It was all about English Premier League sides paying £80million for guys who can’t get into the team and selling them for £40m months later — and how Celtic are struggling to compete with that because ‘there is no money’.
The thing is, no one expects Celtic to compete with Manchester City and Arsenal for the Champions League. That whole argument is completely disingenuous.
It is hardly asking too much, though, to expect an outfit with nearly £70m in the bank and an overall wage bill north of £70m to be more than cannon fodder for Kairat Almaty, Ferencvaros, Cluj and Sparta Prague reserves.
In McGregor’s midweek call for the club to match his own ambitions in rebuilding from this shambolic campaign, he talked about the need for Champions League football. He talked about the need for everyone at Parkhead to be determined about playing at the highest level. About being ‘the best version of Celtic’.
He must know himself that this isn’t going to happen. The Desmonds are going nowhere. Right now, there’s little sign of Nicholson being moved to the side — or lobbed out the front door — as he should be.
There will be personnel changes — a new manager, with Robbie Keane a strong and suitable candidate, some kind of sporting director type, a new chairman, maybe a bit of fresh blood on the board — but you’d get long odds on any kind of root-and-branch revolution playing out.
Those in charge of Celtic over the past two decades have shown no interest in putting the club back on the map in continental competition.
Brendan Rodgers was brought back as manager — still one of the most perplexing appointments of recent times — and not given the backing his ambition required. Ange Postecoglou left a cult hero — despite being the first boss ever to be dumped out of three European tournaments in the same season.
As long as Celtic have kept their noses in front of Rangers, that appears to have been enough. Little did they know Hearts were about to come up on the blindside.
McGregor’s remarks during the week alluded to this. He spoke of the need for everyone in the building to be accountable for their actions. He detailed the need for everyone to push for a Celtic that can be as good as it possibly can be. You hardly need the tangential thought processes of Sherlock Holmes to read between the lines and see what he’s getting at. And he is absolutely spot-on.
It’s just that it feels all too late for McGregor. He should have laid down this kind of ultimatum years ago. When he had more leverage.
Instead, how many of those embarrassing nights in Europe have we witnessed when he came out afterwards talking about the need to learn lessons? Over and over again.
Celtic haven’t been paying a raft of players tens of thousands of pounds a week down the years to learn lessons against foreign opposition. They’ve been paying them to get results. And they haven’t been able to.
McGregor is 33 this summer. He still has two years left on his current deal, but he isn’t the force he was. If he does leave — and it looks like he might — to join Rodgers at Al-Qadsiah in Saudi Arabia or wherever, it is unlikely to cause the ructions many appear to be predicting. There’s a good chance a new boss will want a new captain anyway.
McGregor, of course, should have lobbied for a transfer back in 2019 after Rodgers left first time round, having thrown all manner of big, gloopy mudballs at the boardroom over a lack of spending ahead of a Champions League qualifying exit to AEK Athens.
Rodgers was always clear that McGregor was good enough to play for a top-six club in England. It’s a real shame he didn’t explore the possibility of going with him to Leicester City and test himself in the English Premier League, push to really make it to the top of the game like Kieran Tierney did.
Instead, he stayed on and got caught up in the maelstrom as 10-In-A-Row went for a Burton during the disastrous Covid season of 2020-21. That could have been another juncture for him to lay down the law the way he did this week or threaten to go.
Even in January, as speculation over a move to Saudi reached fever pitch, he appeared to go missing for a while. Maybe he was waiting to see what kind of statement Celtic made in the market. Joel Mvuka, Junior Adamu and Tomas Cvancara — all on loan — surely weren’t what he expected.
McGregor’s prospects of competing at a high level of club football are, of course, over. He isn’t going to the big six in England now. And Celtic aren’t suddenly going to start succeeding in Europe. Saudi, if that is still an option, at least offers an opportunity to generate life-changing, generational wealth.
There’s a Scottish Cup final coming up that would serve as a perfect farewell. Somehow, Celtic are also still in the mix for the title.
If McGregor really means what he says, it’s hard to see how he is compatible with those at the top of the club beyond this point.
It’s just a shame he didn’t call out the board with this kind of force sooner. And a shame, given what an excellent and intelligent footballer he has been, he didn’t push to fulfil his full potential outwith a club whose failure to keep their eye on the ball in footballing terms has led to the mess they’re in right now.
