Callum McGregor insists Celtic owe their supporters an apology after their battering by Borussia Dortmund. The Hoops were hammered 7-1 by the Bundesliga big guns on a sorry night at Signal Iduna Park.
McGregor admitted the defeat was a sore one – and the punters who travelled in huge numbers deserved better. Celts had the backing of around 4000 fans in the stadium and several thousand more who headed to Germany without tickets. But their side got spooked by Dortmund and the roof caved in during nightmare 90 minutes in the Champions League. McGregor is looking for an immediate response at Ross County in the Premiership on Sunday – and in Italy when they face Atalanta in the Champions League in a few weeks.
The skipper said: “We can only apologise to the fans because when you play for Celtic and get beat 7-1 it is not good enough. Credit to them for sticking with us and we thank them for that. We know that can’t happen again.
“I hate standing here making excuses when you lose heavily like that but I have to say a word about the supporters because all credit to them as they stuck with the team and that is a compliment to how well the team is playing and how well the season has started. We have to quickly get over it as we have another game on Sunday and the only way we can put that right is by winning.”
McGregor admitted the Hoops were humbled by Dortmund and the performance was unacceptable. He said: “Everybody will have a pop and that is what happens when you play for Celtic. I hate trying to make excuses when you get beat 7-1 because it is not acceptable.
“There are still positives because the season has started really well and the game against Slovan we were excellent. It shows you what the level is like when you don’t quite play to it and they have a good night.
“That made things really difficult for us. We came and we wanted to be aggressive in the game and we have been humbled a bit. We need to have that learning curve for the next games that are coming up and the level.
“We need to bring a better level of game than we did against Dortmund. We also need to learn from that when the game starts to get away from you can we shut up shop a bit and steady the flow of the game for five minutes. It is not all doom and gloom but there are no excuses when you lose 7-1.”
Boss Brendan Rodgers insisted he had no regrets about Celtic’s set up in Germany but McGregor admitted the Hoops can’t get away with taking the same approach in Europe as they do in Scotland. He said: “It is difficult to change the mindset as you want to be aggressive as that is the way we play and that is in our DNA.
“It is just drummed into us for so long that we think the best form of defence is attack but when you are playing against this level of quality player then they have shown us that there are other ways to do it. We don’t need to be so aggressive, especially when the game is turning against you. It is just something we have to learn from.
“We want to maintain that aggressiveness as we got a good result at home and we want to be aggressive throughout the tournament. But we reached a level against Dortmund where they were better than us.
“We are where we are and we are where we expected to be after two games. It was a bad result but we have started the season really well and we just need to stay together.”