McGregor: Celtic need to add players but we trust each other

Callum McGregor has insisted he still has faith in the Celtic board’s ability to strengthen the squad before Friday’s transfer deadline, after Brendan Rodgers publicly lambasted the length of time it takes the club to get deals done.
Rodgers has said he wants two new midfielders to compensate for the loss of Matt O’Riley, who completed his transfer to Brighton & Hove Albion on Monday. The deal is reportedly worth a Scottish-record initial £26million, which could rise to £30million with add-ons.
Alex Valle, the 20-year-old Barcelona left back, is set to join the Scottish champions on a season-long loan, while a £6.5million bid is believed to have been lodged with Augsburg for the Belgian midfielder Arne Engels, also 20. The German club are understood to be holding out for as much as double the value of the initial offer.
Celtic have also been linked with a move for Odsonne Édouard, who previously spent three years in Glasgow before joining Crystal Palace in 2021. The 26-year-old French forward remains Celtic’s record signing, having cost around £9million from Paris Saint-Germain. Celtic have also targeted Mateusz Bogusz, the Poland midfielder whose corner Olivier Giroud headed home for LAFC’s goal in a 3-1 MLS Leagues Cup final defeat by Columbus Crew on Sunday.
Reports in Italy suggest that Rodgers is keen to sign Gustav Isaksen, O’Riley’s Denmark team-mate, who plays on the wing for Lazio and featured in both Champions League group games against Celtic last season.
Isaksen, who scored for the Roman outfit in their 2-1 defeat by Udinese on Saturday, moved to Serie A from Midtjylland last August in a deal worth an initial £10million, but Celtic believe they can convince Lazio to let him leave on loan with an obligation to buy.
The sale of O’Riley will further bolster Celtic’s already bulging coffers, the club having recently alerted the stock market that they plan to report “significantly higher than expected” cash reserves in their next set of half-year accounts due to be lodged next month.
So far this summer, however, the only incoming transfers have been Paulo Bernardo and Adam Idah — who were both on loan at Celtic last season — as well as two new goalkeepers, Kasper Schmeichel and Viljami Sinisalo, following the retirement of Joe Hart.
Rodgers vented his frustration after Sunday’s 3-0 win over St Mirren, saying: “There are a number of things I won’t go into here. But it’s definitely something — having come back in and gone through three windows now — we have to put right as a football club. We shouldn’t have been getting into this last week in the position we’re in.
“That’s the reality. However, that’s something for us for after this window. We’ll get the players in that we want [but] we don’t need to manufacture our own stress when there’s no need.
“As a football club, we want to develop, we want to improve. We can’t be happy just to make our money and build our pot because the bottom line is on the pitch. That’s the bottom line.
“The supporters, they pay the money. I look back to the Covid times here, the Celtic supporters sold the stadium out and they weren’t allowed in it. So we have the duty to put the best team on the pitch.
“It’s taken a lot longer than I would have liked as the football manager. That’s my brutally honest answer on it.”
However, McGregor remains adamant that the necessary additions will be made before the market closes for business at 11pm on Friday. Asked how he viewed the transfer window, the captain said: “I think probably the same as everyone else. You know, when you lose two or three bodies, especially quality ones, then you have to try to replace them with, if not the same quality, then can we try and help the group as much as we can?
“We want to see the club and the group moving forward and like I said, we’ve lost a few so it’s important that we try to replace that. I think we have to trust the people in the positions to do the job. And that’s the one thing that the club’s been good at. We all trust each other.
“So from my end, there’s no worries. And hopefully when we get to the end of the week, we’ll be where we need to be.”
Celtic go into Sunday’s first Old Firm derby of the season in fine form, having swept aside Kilmarnock, St Mirren and Hibernian (twice) in their first four domestic fixtures.
The crispness of their play has been in marked contrast to much of Rodgers’ first campaign back at the helm, which saw him miss influential figures such as Reo Hatate and Cameron Carter-Vickers for long spells.
“It’s just time and people adapting to the system,” McGregor said by way of explanation for the recent improvements. “It’s a really high-level system that we’re playing, just really intricate and the detail behind it and when to move, when to pass the ball, speed of pass, angle of pass.
“All these things are really, really important for what look like small details. You get guys coming in and it takes them a while to get up to speed. Then that’s probably where we were at maybe this point last season, where, yes, we were getting results, but maybe not as slick as where we have been. But that’s just credit to the coaches, the manager, the players, for taking on the information.
“It seems like we’re in a really good moment. So in football, you want to try to maximise that for as long as you can.”
Philippe Clement, the Rangers manager, has vowed to take the game to Celtic despite the Ibrox men having drawn one and lost four of last season’s derbies across the Premiership and Scottish Cup final.
Asked whether he paid heed to such comments, McGregor replied: “No. It’s just talk, isn’t it, and talk’s cheap.”