Happy to suffer – Callum McGregor certain tough games are making Celtic better

Celtic captain Callum McGregor believes they have made strides in the Champions League by understanding that they will need to “suffer” at times.

The Scottish champions got a point closer to extending their involvement in the competition when they bounced back from a difficult start to claim a 1-1 home draw with Club Brugge.

The Belgians were the better side before Cameron Carter-Vickers gifted them a 26th-minute opener with an own goal but Celtic finished the stronger team after Daizen Maeda’s excellent solo equaliser on the hour mark.

After struggling to get their just rewards for their attacking play in the previous two seasons and taking a 7-1 hit against Borussia Dortmund, Celtic appear to have learned to ride the waves when coming under attack and appreciate that they cannot always be on the front foot.

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Having beaten RB Leipzig 3-1 at home last time out, expectations were high among the Celtic support, but McGregor knows they will not have it all their own way in any European match.

“I think the performance level against Leipzig was so high and it was a perfect storm,” he said. “We scored at the right time, atmosphere, everything all came together and what was probably a perfect night performance-wise. You’ve got to carry a bit of luck at this level as well. We scored at the right times and got ourselves back into the game.

“The pleasing aspect again is that even when we’re struggling in the game we can regain control of the game and that’s something that we’ve got a lot better at, especially in the Champions League level where we understand the times we have to suffer because they’re all good teams at this level and they’ve shown that.”

McGregor admitted they were a bit disconnected with their pressing in the opening half hour but managed to sort things out before a half-time tactical tweak allowed them to have a stronger foothold in the game.

“They’ve come here with a good idea with the ball, really comfortable, really good players and then a threat when they break through as well,” the midfielder added.

“You’re not always going to have everything your own way but what was pleasing again was that we took stock at half-time, changed it a little bit and then we looked like the team who were pushing and causing the problems, so that’s another string on our bow in terms of being at this level. We’re happy to suffer when we need to.”

Celtic have learned lessons from their humbling in Dortmund to go unbeaten in their next three Champions League matches.

“The Atalanta game was probably big for us in terms of understanding that we need to suffer,” McGregor said.

“You want to go and press and do all these things and be the aggressor in the game all the time but you’re playing against good players with good team and good tactical ideas so there are times where you’re going to be under the pump a little bit. So we sort of worked that out against Atalanta, the same against Leipzig and then again.

“Not as good a performance in terms of all-round but you stay in the game, you earn yourself another point which keeps us going in the right direction and I think overall still a decent enough performance.

“And when we finished the game we’ve kind of come off with the feeling of maybe we’ve missed an opportunity there because we’re the team that’s more likely to score at the end.”

Celtic now have eight points and one win from their final three matches – against Dinamo Zagreb, Young Boys and Aston Villa – which looks almost certainly enough to put them into the play-offs.

“It’s important that we take stock of where we are,” McGregor said. “We’ve got three games to still progress and we are kind of where we want to be, where it’s all in our hands and we’ve got everything to play for.

“It’s been a really good body of work and still a lot of work to do but the players are growing in confidence all the time and all the different performances are asking different things of the group.”