Celtic captain Callum McGregor vows to keep ‘chipping away’ as team navigate tough period

Celtic captain Callum McGregor stressed he would keep “chipping away” in his bid to lead the team through a difficult period.

The Scottish champions are going through a transitional phase on the pitch and major strife off the park.

Some certainty could be on its way amid reports Columbus Crew head coach Wilfried Nancy will move to Celtic Park on December 1 to become Brendan Rodgers’ permanent replacement.

Celtic, who are under the interim management of Martin O’Neill, came close to dropping points for the fifth time in 12 William Hill Premiership games on Saturday.

Yet, with four minutes of stoppage time gone, McGregor teed himself up to thunder a 25-yard strike into the top corner to earn a 1-0 win at St Mirren.

Celtic’s last-gasp victory cut the gap at the top to four points, while they have a game in hand on leaders Hearts, who lost at Aberdeen on Sunday.

But off-field rancour does not appear to be going anywhere. Celtic fans have campaigned for boardroom change following slow summer transfer business and Champions League qualification failure, and an abandoned annual general meeting highlighted the depth of disagreements.

McGregor did his best to rally the support after the game in Paisley, saying: “We just need to keep going. There’s been a lot of negativity, change, and disruption. This club is better when everyone is together.

“Our job on the pitch is to win games of football and give the supporters a team they can be proud of.

“There are difficult moments in football. Every club goes through it. Let’s not shy away from it, it’s a difficult period. You have to really dig in.

“Of course you want to be flying, winning 4-0 or 5-0 every week, but it doesn’t just happen like that. It’s modern day football.

“The club has been successful over a long period of time. Yes, we made mistakes, we didn’t quite perform at the level to get into the Champions League. That was a big blow for everyone. The players feel it, the supporters feel it, the club feels it.

“Since then it’s been a bit of an uphill battle. But we are still competing on all fronts and come the end of the season, can we make sure with all the adversity we can still have had a good season?

“That’s my message to the players, the supporters, to everybody inside the club. It’s step by step, just keep chipping away, because eventually it will turn for you.

“If that can be the catalyst to bring everything together then that would be great.

“But I know for sure there will be other challenging periods throughout the season. You just keep chipping away and we’ll take stock at the end of May.”

McGregor is doing his best to ensure the off-field negativity does not affect the squad.

“It’s probably a little bit easier for the players,” the 32-year-old said. “We live in our own wee bubble anyway in terms of preparing for games.

“We’re trying to protect that as much as we can, saying to players not to listen too much to the outside noise.

“Of course some of it filters in a little bit. But the only thing we can affect is winning games of football and if we can do that, hopefully that will realign the supporters, the team, the club, everyone moving forward.

“Because Celtic is a much stronger entity when everyone is pushing in the same direction.”