Let’s enjoy it – Callum McGregor wants fans to get excited about red-hot Celtic

Celtic captain Callum McGregor is happy for fans to get excited about the team’s potential following their flying start to the Champions League campaign.

Brendan Rodgers’ side took their recent domestic form into the European sphere with a 5-1 victory over Slovan Bratislava in their first game in the new league format.

The Scottish champions have now scored 22 goals in seven wins this season, conceding just twice, and have won 15 matches on the trot stretching back to April.

When asked how excited supporters should be, McGregor said: “Listen, let them think everything. That’s what we want. We want pure positivity. We want that.

“The group are working hard, still a relatively young group and new players in there as well, and we’ll continue to work and try and push and get the absolute maximum out the players that we can and then let’s see where we go.

“Let’s enjoy it and and go and take the challenge head on.”

Celtic had gone 10 years without a home win in the Champions League group stage before beating Feyenoord in a dead rubber in December last year.

Fans might have feared a familiar story when former Rangers winger Vladimir Weiss was played through for the chance to equalise half an hour in on Wednesday after Celtic missed a number of chances.

But they found their clinical edge in the second half to ensure they took advantage of their pressure, something they have not quite done in the previous two seasons.

McGregor said: “When we’ve spoken after hard nights and tough defeats, then it’s learning, learning, learning and at some point you’ve got to learn and produce and that’s maybe where we’re at a little bit.

“The group have got a good balance of youth and experience and the draw’s there for us to go and really be excited by it.

“But ultimately when you come to the pitch you have to deliver and that’s what we’re judged on. Opening night, fantastic performance, fantastic result and then we just take it from there.”

After dispensing with the Champions League debutants, Celtic now have their toughest three European matches on paper in a row, starting with trips to Borussia Dortmund and Atalanta, followed by a home game against RB Leipzig.

“We’ll take good confidence from this game,” McGregor said. “Five goals in a Champions League game shows you that the level of attacking play was there, clinical, ruthless, all these things that you need to be on Champions League nights.

“Now we have a run of tougher games, as you would say, but no reason why we can’t go and see where our football’s at compared to these teams and go with all the confidence in the world that we believe we’re a good team and and let’s see what we can do.”

Celtic ended Wednesday night in second place in the 36-team league behind Bayern Munich, although eight teams had yet to play their opener.

McGregor revealed the margin of victory was on their mind as they look to at least finish in the top 24 and seal a play-off place.

“We kind of spoke about this before the game actually, that goal difference was going to be really important,” the 31-year-old midfielder said.

“I think there will be a lot of teams sitting on similar points and it could be the goals scored and goals against that will potentially keep you in or not.

“We have to keep an eye on that as well. So we feel when we’re up in the game, you have to go and try and maximise that because you never know when the next opportunity to do that is.”