If we had to lose our first game of 2022 then we’d all have selected that to happen in the Europa Conference League ahead of the Scottish Cup or even more importantly the Scottish Premiership. There’s the second leg on Thursday night where Celtic can look to overturn the 3-1 deficit, a two goal lead during a match can be a deceiving scoreline, you lose one goal and the mentality can change, we actually witnessed that for few seconds after Maeda pulled one back on Thursday but it was clearly Bodo/ Glimt’s night when they burst that particular bubble – after outrageously having an in-match huddle – by scoring a third aided by a wicked (in more ways than one) defection off the outstretched leg of Callum McGregor.
The Celtic captain spoke to the media, as reported by Scottish Sun, ahead of tomorrow’s return to league duties against Dundee at Celtic Park and is looking for the correct response from his teammates.
“Everyone will be looking at us to see how we react. Are our heads going to go down? Are we going to work as hard? We have to go and answer those questions. The good thing about football is every three or four days you get a chance to rectify a situation.
“That’s exactly what we’ll try and do. Our full focus will be on recovering in the next few days then we go again against Dundee. These are all huge games. Especially when you get to this point in the season, every point counts and every game counts.”
The skipper intends to make sure that the perfect domestic start to 2022 that Celtic has made continues tomorrow.
“We’re going well in the league. Thursday was a disappointing result. When you have a good result you need to follow it up with another good result. This is exactly the same. You have to be at it. It’s up to the players to make sure they rest, get the right fuel into them and go again when the big games come around.
“That’s the beauty of being at this club. The standards are always super-high and you have to meet them. You’ve got to do everything you can so when the next game comes, you are fresh and ready to go. You attack every game exactly the same. You need to win.”
Dundee will have a new manager taking the team tomorrow with James McPake losing his job during the week, being replaced by the former Celtic striker Mark McGhee. There’s always a danger in a side having a bounce caused by the appointment of a new gaffer, indeed that is exactly what the Dundee board are hoping for as they desperately try to fight off the very real threat of relegation. Getting something at Celtic Park would be massive for the Dens Park club and McGregor is aware of this ‘new manager bounce’ threat.
“I’ve seen this a lot of times in football, where teams get a bounce off a new manager. Obviously they won their last two games anyway so the players will be feeling good about themselves. We just have to do our homework and when we turn up to Parkhead on Sunday we have to give everything to win the game.”
