THE mouthwatering Champions League encounter with last season’s beaten finalists Borussia Dortmund at the Westfalenstadion in Germany next Tuesday night is at the forefront of most Celtic fans’ thoughts at the moment.

There is no prospect of Callum McGregor and his Parkhead team mates, though, allowing their minds to wander to the meeting with the Bundesliga giants.

McGregor will be fully focused on helping the Scottish champions’ maintain their winning start to the 2024/25 season when he takes to the field at McDiarmid Park for the William Hill Premiership match against managerless St Johnstone on Saturday.

The Celtic captain can still recall the half-time rollicking which he and his fellow players, who had performed woefully in the opening 45 minutes and were trailing 1-0, received from their manager Brendan Rodgers on their last visit to Perth back in December.

The midfielder knows the Glasgow side are in a completely different place now to where they were nine months ago and is confident they can record their ninth consecutive victory and stretch their lead over Rangers, who take on Hibernian at Ibrox on Sunday, at the top of the table to eight points.   

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Still, he is keen to avoid another dressing down from Rodgers, who admitted it was the angriest he had been in his entire career, this time around.

“Oh for sure, aye, absolutely,” he said yesterday as he lent his support to the Celtic women’s team ahead of their crucial Champions League qualifier against Vorska Poltava at the Excelsior Stadium in Airdrie this evening. 

“It was a bit of a difficult day and we managed to turn it around in the end (McGregor scored in the second half as Celtic won 3-1). But, again, it's another lesson. If you don't do your work properly, if you don't do all the small details, if you don’t earn the right to win, then any game can be difficult.

“The players understand that and the full focus this week is about this game. We want to try and get a positive result, positive performance and then take it into the midweek game as well.”

(Image: PA Wire via DPA) Asked about Rodgers’ reaction to their first half showing at McDiarmid Park in December, he said: “It was certainly the angriest I've seen him. I think that's the statement that everyone kind of clings onto. Because he's normally very, very calm under pressure.
“I think it was just maybe a step too far that day. Of course, the pressure and the situation and how the team had been playing up to that point probably played a factor in it as well.

“But you're in elite level sport so you have to take criticism and you have to take the manager's view on board. If you're not doing well or you're not doing the things that you should as a team then you have to be told and I'm sure the players want it that way as well.

“Now nine months on is the group are in a really good place and probably better for that reaction at half-time. Obviously different players probably react differently to criticism or those moments of red button panic stations.
“When you see someone like the manager losing his cool and demanding more then it makes you want to turn the thing around and get a positive result, which we obviously did on that day. The second half performance was much, much better.”

McGregor has helped Celtic to thrash Rangers 3-0 in the Premiership and hammer Slovan Bratislava 5-1 in the Champions league so far this term. But he is well aware that avoiding slip-ups on the road against lesser opponents is every bit as important as winning high-profile games. 

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“To play at this club you need big mentality,” he said. “It's not just skill or determination or desire. You have to have the mentality to go again every three days. Whoever you play wants to beat you. Then it becomes their cup final.

“That's the mark of a good Celtic player - being able to perform under pressure. Especially in this next run of games where you're playing every three days. You've got to go again and find a way to win games that won't always be pretty.
“We set out to be a team that wants to play football and dominate the game. But going into this period there will be leggy bodies at the end of it and you just have to find a way to win.”

The 31-year-old has been pleased with the immediate impact which summer signings like Paulo Bernardo, Arne Engels, Luke McCowan and Adam Idah have made. He is confident they will rise to the challenge if they are involved against Dortmund. But he knows they have to be at their very best against St Johnstone.  

(Image: Craig Williamson - SNS Group) “Naturally, people will get excited,” he said. “But you don't get to the Champions League if you don't win the league. That is the bread and butter. That's the message that we speak about every day in training. Trying to set that level every day so that when the games come it becomes an automatic thing.
“Like I said, it's mentality. It's what the group demands of each other to perform every three days and get the three points that are on offer. But I don't think I need to be geeing them up too often. Because if you do there is something else broken in the chain.

“When you get to that point it's like, ‘Well, we need to find an emergency way out of this situation’. When you get to that point there are probably a few things that you've missed before that.

“Of course,  less motivation is needed for the big games, probably less voice in terms of the senior players. But our job is trying to prepare the team Monday to Friday so that we don't get to that emergency point of someone needing to do something special to bring us out of a hole.

“Of course, the motivation element, for me especially and the senior players, is always important because at the end of the day you're human beings. So every now and again you need a jag to get you going.

“But can you eliminate that part of it? At that point you're doing a good job rather than having to keep intervening all the time and keep trying to find solutions to problems that arise. In my experience it's about trying to encounter less problems. Then you're doing a good job.”