Ange Postecoglou will speak to Callum McGregor, who he watched starring for Scotland against England at Wembley last week, and the likely outcome is that the midfielder will be thereafter confirmed as the New Celtic captain. The Australian is also considering Christopher Jullien for Scott Brown’s old job as the French defender looks set for an earlier than expected return to fitness after his horror knee smash against the Celtic Park goalpost at the end of last year.
McGregor was also outstanding in the Scotland defeat to Croatia, scoring the only goal of the tournament for Steve Clarke’s side to give Scotland some hope at the interval in the final group stages match. Those performances may have been somewhat overlooked by the Scottish media but won’t have been with Premier League scouts who will have been watching closely.
So when McGregor has that conversation with Postecoglou we’ll get an indication of whether Callum McGregor, as expected is planning at Celtic or if he fancies following the likes of Virgil van Dijk, Kieran Tierney and Stuart Armstrong to earn big bucks south of the border.
Hopefully Dom McKay will be looking at this one carefully and a new, improved contract for the new Celtic captain could well be the solution that benefits everyone.
On McGregor his new manager had this to say: “I have only had limited experience of him, but I watched him live and I thought he had a tremendous tournament, irrespective of his goal against Croatia. I thought he grew into the tournament.
“Even in the last game he was in the middle of everything. He really wanted to be involved and take a leadership role. He’s one I will sit down and chat to.
“He has a great history around the club and I think he will come back really motivated, really wanting to take this club up.
“He is definitely one of the people I will be looking to for leadership, irrespective of whether he is captain or not. I see him as a very influential figure, for sure,” Postecoglou stated.
“With Scott Brown gone there is a vacuum. It’s about seeing now whether there is somebody within the club who wants to step up because it’s often difficult when you have such a powerful figure there.
“Other players maybe don’t feel comfortable expressing themselves, as much out of respect more than anything else. Now that person has gone I’m going to be looking within the club to see if there is a person there.
“Obviously with me coming in things will change in the way we train and some of the values we put across. If there’s somebody within the club — and my instincts are it will be within the club — that someone will step up.”
Rodgers met Scott Brown at his London home in May 2016 to discuss the midfielder’s recent troubles at the club and to assess whether the two men could work together and if so how. That worked out fine for both men and also Celtic. Here’s hoping that the chat between Ange and Callum goes the same way and has a similar outcome!
