AFTER days of heated debate in Scottish football about the influence of sports scientists in the modern game, it should perhaps not have been a complete shock to hear Callum McGregor come up with his very own chaos theory yesterday.
The Celtic captain did not, probably quite wisely, get involved in the ongoing discussion about whether managers should allow the advice of the performance gurus on their backroom staff to dictate their selections.
He did, though, offer an informed opinion on why he and his team mates had failed to play to the best of their abilities in the first half of the Premier Sports Cup final against Rangers at Hampden last month.
Brendan Rodgers’ men may have overcome Philippe Clement’s charges in a penalty shootout and might have lifted the first piece of silverware of the season and keep alive their chances of completing a ninth domestic treble come May.
However, the Scottish champions failed, by McGregor’s own admission, to reach the levels they are capable of during the opening 45 minutes of the thrilling encounter and allowed their opponents to take the lead just before half-time.
So why did the midfielder think that was the case? And what does he believe Celtic need to do to avoid a repeat display in their William Hill Premiership match at Ibrox this afternoon and prevail? The former Scotland internationalist has a chaos theory.
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“It was a bit of a chaotic game,” he said. “As the match went on, we started to get control of the game. We scored three goals and could have probably had more. But we scored two and then we conceded straight after them which doesn't help things.
“Generally, when we go in front in games we can see the game out. Obviously, Rangers were pushing in the game as well and they felt good about the game. Us maybe not so much. We probably tried to protect it after we got the third goal which is unlike us as well.
“So the emotion of cup finals is difficult to deal with and when it becomes a wee bit like that - they score, we score, they score, we score - then it can be difficult to manage the game.
“But in cup finals everyone understands that that can happen. There’s so much emotion around the game and it became a bit chaotic. Obviously, we've looked at the game since.”
“When we needed to find something in the penalty shootout we did. We showed our strength of character again. But I think if we take the chaos out of the game then it starts to look a bit more like what we are like.”
McGregor tends to cause complete havoc in the Rangers side on derby day and stopping him from playing, starving him of possession and closing him down when he does get on the ball, will be a priority for Clement this afternoon.
But the Celtic captain, who will have Reo Hatate, Paulo Bernardo, Arne Engels, Daizen Maeda and Nicolas Kuhn around him, knows that focusing on one member of a team simply creates opportunities for others.
“I guess when you break it down like that then it is a backhanded compliment,” he said. “But, for me, I just try and do what I can to help the team and make sure that we win the game.
“That is the same in every game. There are teams in the league that will try and do certain things to stifle, whether it be the build up or try and force the ball wide. It’s then about us trying to find a different scenario, a different way and a different solution.
“We've got good people in here that understand the game. We'll be looking at the cup final as well. Rangers were pretty good in that mid-pitch block so we need to maybe find a different way of trying to exploit that.
“So, we understand the game's always live and it's changing and there'll be certain people marked at different times in the game. It's just then us trying to find the spare player and play our way through the pressure.”
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The fallout to the cup final was dominated by the outcry over the failure by the VAR officials to award Rangers a penalty when winger Vaclav Cerny was pulled inside the Celtic area by centre-half Liam Scales in extra-time.
McGregor, a battle-hardened veteran of such epic tussles, has heard it all many times before and was, having celebrated when Maeda netted the winning spot kick and then lifted the cup aloft, unconcerned.
“Our players deserve a lot of credit for that as well. It is what it is. I think that as players we understand how difficult the game was and appreciate that internally we stood up to the challenge and got the job done.”
The mental strength which the Celtic players showed at Hampden has given the 31-year-old confidence they can, despite not having any supporters in the 52,000-strong crowd, record another win over Rangers at Ibrox and increase their lead to 17 points.
“We know what these games are like,” he said. “They're frantic, they’re 100 miles an hour. So if you can settle into the game, find the ball and control the tempo of the game with the ball, then you can turn the momentum of the game in your favour.
“Ultimately that's what we'll try and do. We’ll try and go there and control the game and try and change the atmosphere a little bit. We've been there many times, including this group of players, and we understand what it takes to get success. Everybody's well equipped for it and it's now about us. When we step over the line, can we deliver that?”
McGregor added: “I really enjoy them. I think they're brilliant games to play in. They test you in so many different ways. And you have to win. So it tests your ultimate mentality as in the difficult moments you have to find a way and it's not always pretty, it's not always beautiful football.
“But you have to find a way. Sometimes in life not everything goes your way all the time so you have to dig in and find a result and I think this fixture is the ultimate test of that and your character.”
