Callum McGregor: Celtic fans should be excited after 'fantastic result'

Celtic captain Callum McGregor was thrilled by his side’s performance in their 5-1 demolition of Slovan Bratislava and says the club’s support are right to be excited about their team.

In the opening match of the new-look Champions League, Celtic were dominant and goals from Liam Scales, Kyogo Furuhashi, Arne Engels, Daizen Maeda and Adam Idah had the fans on their feet as the team roared to a memorable win.

The victory continued a strong start to the season that has seen Brendan Rodgers’ side win all seven of their games, with 22 goals scored and only two conceded.

Wednesday’s win is arguably the most notable of those successes, with Celtic having struggled at the elite level in recent seasons. McGregor believes that the lessons from those experiences helped deliver this time around.

He said: “When we’ve spoken after hard nights and tough defeats, then it’s learning, learning, learning and at some point you’ve got to learn and produce and that’s maybe where we’re at a little bit.

“The group have got a good balance of youth and experience and the draw’s there for us to go and really be excited by it.

“But ultimately when you come to the pitch you have to deliver and that’s what we’re judged on. Opening night, fantastic performance, fantastic result and then we just take it from there.”

After the comprehensive win over Slovan, Celtic now look ahead to tougher challenges in the competition. A trip to Dortmund to face Borussia is followed by an away match against Atalanta before the team welcomes RB Leipzig to Glasgow. The Celtic skipper says that although the next opposition may be more difficult, Celtic will travel with belief.

“We’ll take good confidence from this game,” McGregor said. “Five goals in a Champions League game shows you that the level of attacking play was there, clinical, ruthless, all these things that you need to be on Champions League nights.

“Now we have a run of tougher games, as you would say, but no reason why we can’t go and see where our football’s at compared to these teams and go with all the confidence in the world that we believe we’re a good team and and let’s see what we can do.”

And when asked how excited Celtic’s support should be about the team’s form and results, McGregor said they would be right to be enjoying the moment.

“Listen, let them think everything,” he said. “That’s what we want.

“We want pure positivity. We want that.

“The group are working hard, still a relatively young group and new players in there as well, and we’ll continue to work and try and push and get the absolute maximum out the players that we can and then let’s see where we go.

“Let’s enjoy it and and go and take the challenge head on.”