'Nobody would have believed you': Callum McGregor has say on Celtic’s cursed season

It would be easy for those of a Celtic persuasion to feel their 10-in-a-row tilt is cursed.

Callum McGregor in action for Celtic during Monday's 1-1 draw with Hibs. (Photo by Craig Foy / SNS Group)

A whopping 21 points adrift of an imperious Rangers, Covid-19 handicaps, defensive calamities, and the Dubai disaster have all conspired to give this campaign a fated feel.

Yet, to his credit, Callum McGregor appears to feel that would be the easy get-out - even as he acknowledges the vagaries of the past six months were impossible to anticipate.

"It's been a difficult season, there is no denying that,” said the club’s de facto captain, who will assume that role aain with Scott Brown, as with Monday’s 1-1 draw against Hibs, among the 13 players isolating, along with manager Neil Lennon, assistant John Kennedy, in being deemed close contacts of Christopher Jullien, following the French defender tested positive for Covid-19 after the club’s ill-fated warm weather training camp in the United Arab Emirates last week.

"In football so much is unpredictable, but at the start of the season if you'd written down everything that was going to happen on a bit of paper nobody would have believed you. That's the situation we find ourselves, and the most important thing for the players and everyone at the club is that we learn from this in a positive way. It's easy to start pointing fingers but we, as a club, have to learn from it. Whether it's next season, we have to turn this around as quickly as possible. And next season, and seasons after that, we have to learn from these difficult times."

Yet, if that might sound as if McGregor has given up on effecting an inconceivable turnaround from this Premiership assault, that would be erroneous. “You can’t stop believing,” he said. “We have the games in hand which could narrow the points difference so you can’t just look at the table and throw in the towel. It’s only January. The biggest thing is winning the [three] games in hand and we have two massive games against them and we’ll see where the land lies after that. You’ve heard it a million times in football, things can change very quickly. We have to keep up the intensity and the mindset that could happen. It’s about focusing on our training and making sure we’re winning the games that come around.”

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