ON the day that Stuart Armstrong finally achieved his ambition of winning a move to a Premier League side – he joined Southampton on a four year contract in a transfer worth around £7million to Celtic – the Scottish Champions choose to feature Callum McGregor on the official website.
The contrast between the two Scotland international midfielders could not be more stark in terms of outlook. Armstrong saw Celtic as a means to an end, a way to reach the riches of the Premier League and it has worked out just fine for the former Dundee United man. Fair does.
McGregor though sees Celtic Park as his field of dreams and he has no plans to go anywhere unless he has to! And given the form that he has been in there is next to no chance that that will be the case, certainly for many years to come.
Calmac, like Tom Rogic, who was absolutely outstanding today at the World Cup, see Celtic as the idea environment to play their football. You can add Tierney, Brown, Forrest, Lustig, Grifiths and some others to that list and as Rogic explained the other day, the reason for that is mostly down to Brendan Rodgers.
Indeed Armstrong is probably the first player, who could have had a future at Celtic under Rodgers’ demanding regime, who chose to go elsewhere. Sometimes it’s about the football but often it’s about the money.
And as good as Armstrong is as a player if you had to choose two from three, you’d almost certainly opt for Rogic and McGregor so a £7million transfer represents a good piece of business for Celtic. And if Armstrong was a key player in the 2017 Scottish Cup Final, scoring a vital equaliser, it was McGregor who was centre stage a year later with that wonderful strike against Motherwell to set Celtic on their way to completing two in a row as far as winning Trebles is concerned.
Calmac reflected on that afternoon in his chat with Celtic’s website while over in Austria.
“On holiday you sit back and take in exactly what happened,” McGregor said.
“The incredible scenes on the last day of the season when we came up the Celtic Way with all the fans on the open-top bus, you take a second to realise what has happened. It was a good reflection period but as soon as we started back again, it’s foot to the floor, trying to impress and doing all the same things.
“When you get those goals and play well in big games, then you feel that pressure to go and do it again – can I go and get those goals and affect the games? It’s a good challenge and one I’m looking forward to.
“Especially on the back of the last two pre-seasons, everyone has come back to a good level of fitness and you can tell with the intensity of the sessions that the boys are a lot fitter than they were perhaps two years ago,” Calmac said.
“They are just as important in terms of fitness levels. We obviously have big games coming up as we’re straight into the Champions League qualifiers, so we have to be at peak fitness and we have to try and get as much out of these pre-season games as we can in terms of fitness and game-time for the boys.
“Over the piece, the opponents are getting better each time and it adds to our quality and fitness levels so when we get to that game in Armenia, we’ll be flying.
“It’s been a quick four weeks but you miss it straight away as soon as a week or two weeks passes, you’re desperate to get back out on the grass and back into the games, so it would definitely be great to get back on the pitch and some game-time tomorrow,” he added.
*Celtic TV will be showing FIVE pre-season games LIVE to all subscribers, including UK & Ireland, beginning with the match in Austria against Vorwarts Steyr on Wednesday, 27 June.
