It seems as though Callum McGregor is chalking up milestones in his Celtic career just about every other week at the minute, but his latest was music to his ears as he managed to surpass the goalscoring record of the man known simply as ‘The Maestro’.
The present-day Celtic captain is far too humble to ever claim to have surpassed one of his predecessors, Paul McStay, in his ability to conduct proceedings from the middle of the park, but with his strike against Aberdeen in the 5-1 win on Wednesday night, he did go one better than McStay’s tally of 72 goals for the club.
It is always difficult to compare different players from different eras, but what the achievement of even being mentioned in the same breath as McStay does show McGregor is that he must be doing something right. Not that it has diminished his seemingly insatiable appetite for more success.
“It's always nice to hit wee landmarks like that,” McGregor said.
“Obviously, he is such an influential figure for the club and such a great player.
“To be in the same sentence and in the same bracket is something to be really proud of and it's a combination of hard work and dedication, all these things.
“You don't really think about it too much, you're just so in the moment, trying to recover, play the games, maximise the points that we can get and try and do everything you can to help the team. But it's still nice to hear. Hopefully I've got many more to come.
“He’s one of the names that are mentioned along the way, guys like Tommy Burns, Henrik Larsson, they are the most famous names that come to mind when you think about Celtic.
“He was clearly a legend of the club and somebody that was held in really high regard by everyone. He was an amazing player and just to even be in that same sentence is amazing.
“But there's still a lot to come, still a lot to do and I want to keep pushing and keep giving my all for the club.
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"I haven’t crossed paths with him. Obviously, I know he's in Australia, but he keeps himself to himself. He's quite a private guy from what I hear and like I said, I've never really crossed paths with him.
“But again, that kind of tells you a bit about the guy as well. He’s not one to steal the limelight or these things that maybe ex-players do, they try and hang on a wee bit longer than that.
“He just seems to have done his business and he's away enjoying himself with his family.
“As a player, huge respect for him and everyone holds him in such high regard at the club, so he certainly did something right when he was here.”
McStay might have been forgiven for thinking McGregor would have taken a little longer to reach his tally, but the rediscovery of his shooting boots this term has the Celtic skipper eying his best ever goal return for a season over the remainder of the campaign.
“Pretty much every time I've shot it's been in!” he said.
“You get wee spells like that during your career where you're in a good flow and these things go in and they fall for you.
“It’s nice just to chip in and contribute as well. The goals are being sped up right throughout the team this year and that's been a good source for us as well so we want to continue that as much as we can.
“I think I got 14 at Notts County and the season Covid got the campaign cut short, I was on 13 at that point and then 12 before that. So, I'm getting close to that.
“You want to get to double figures and see where you can get to from there, but again, the job is to make sure the team functions properly and if the team is functioning well then we'll get more opportunities to score and everyone will get more goals, assists etc.
“The number one focus is to make sure the team is doing well, and everything's connected in the way that we want to play and we're defending properly and then that will lead to more chances for everyone.”
Celtic have another chance this evening to take a step closer to confirming their inevitable title win when they visit St Mirren, but McGregor is taking nothing for granted at what he calls a difficult venue, believing his side may have to up their levels from the last couple of matches to get the win.
“Although the result against Aberdeen was very, very good, I think there were still elements of the performance that we could have been better,” he said.
“I think that was actually the overall feeling in the changing room after the game. Yeah, we won 5-1, but actually when we look at the way we want to play the game it probably wasn't perfect or as good as what we've been.
“I think that tells you the mentality is. You can easily just sweep that under the carpet and move on. But we're still talking about things that we can do better, and we want more control in the game.
“The hunger and the attention to detail is there so we just take that into every game, and can we maximise our performance which will hopefully give us the results that we need.
“Obviously St Mirren have been going well too. They’ll feel good about themselves with the result they got last weekend as well, so they're obviously in a good moment. They are at home, where the games have always been tricky anyway.
“We'll have to do a lot right, and the mentality will be there we'll have to match the duels and the intensity and all these things, and then can we bring the game model that we know can hurt them as well.
“It's a big game and we need to turn up and make sure we get three points.”
