CALLUM MCGREGOR says Celtic now have a target on their back after winning the Scottish Premiership title, and warned his teammates they will have to be even hungrier next season if they are to meet the demands of retaining their league crown.
After the draw at Tannadice that confirmed his side as champions, Celtic manager Ange Postecoglou said that this was only the beginning for this squad of players, and that they had more to give in the next campaign.
His captain agrees with that assessment, and says that while they will enjoy the moment of regaining the title, they will have to quickly shift their horizons onto the next campaign where they will be the team their rivals are chasing.
“He’s starting to build something, but it is easy to chase people,” McGregor said.
“When you are chasing something, it is easy, you have that hunger, naturally. The desire. It’s now the opposite. Okay. We’re champions. Brilliant. Now park it.
“We’ll enjoy it at the weekend, but the minute we leave that building, we go away in the summer and come back, we have to be even hungrier. We have to be even fitter.
“There’s a target on your back and that’s where good players will show up and say: Right, let’s go again.
“That’s what we have to do.”
McGregor described Celtic’s 3-0 win over Rangers in February as a pivotal moment in their league triumph, saying that was the night their players truly believed they could go on and topple their city rivals at the top of the table.
“When we beat Rangers at home was a big one,” he said.
“Both teams were going really well in that period [before the winter break]. We were winning and so were Rangers and the gap stayed at six.
“So we knew we had a bit of work to do and looked at that in the winter break and just sort of fine-tuned the way we wanted to play, get boys to strengthen the squad a little bit and those boys have had a huge impact as well.
“But I think a big win like that naturally gives the team confidence and I think at that point, we realised we could go past them, and that’s what we did.”
