Everything Celtic captain Callum McGregor said to the media after his side's draw against Atalanta in the Champions League...

Was that a match that helped restore Celtic's pride?

It was hugely important. More for ourselves, to be honest. People write what they want to write and we don't have much control over that other than the performances we put in. If you don’t perform well, people are going to criticise you, that's just the nature of the business. I think for us we came off the game against Dortmund and we just never did ourselves justice. The boys were low and they were low because they didn't perform to the level that we know we can. It can be a difficult one, on the back of that one. Maybe you think you’ve got it out of your system and the game starts and maybe you think, right hold on we're in a game again. But I actually thought the boys dealt with that well and showed big character, big belief, and physicality as well which is really important at this level. 

As you saw, the Dortmund boys are so physical they can take the game away from you really quickly. So to stand up to that challenge against a team who are by the way, Europa League winners last season and they have the top goal scorer in Serie A - you won't play against many teams that test you physically as much as what they will?

The game can become random at times just due to the nature of that. But then you've got to win your duels and you've got to win your battles and I thought the boys did that brilliantly.

You said pre-match you would do your talking on the pitch. You kept true to your word, didn't you?

When you represent such a big club like this and you have a result like that, it hurts and it stays with you and all these things where you feel pride to try to put it right for yourself and your teammates and then the supporters as well. We came out the back of that game and we never showed ourselves in a good light, but it was important against Atalanta that we showed we don't want to talk, we want to be a team that does the talking on the pitch.

You now have a massive platform to take into the home games, don't you?

Yeah, it's probably a bonus point, I think we knew that we could probably get something from the game, we had to bring a big level and all these things. But it's a game that we thought we could get something from, and now that we have it's a bit of a bonus. With the other games, we just have to look at them in isolation and see what we can get and hopefully, by the end of the competition in January we've qualified or we're in that playoff group to go and try to qualify for the next stage. We just take it one by one and try not to get too up or down in terms of the results, we know where we want to be and we’ve just got to stick together as a group.

How pleased are you for the manager and how much was this result down to a managerial masterclass?

It was excellent. If anyone wants to question the manager then they just need to look at what he's done in football and what he's done to our club, he transformed the club the first time he was here and he's come back and taken us forward as a team as well, just as he did at Leicester. For me, there's no question that he's a top manager. When you come to this competition, the idea in the Dortmund game was similar, we got lost as players so we have to take responsibility for that as well. It got out of hand and we spoke about that. As players, we've got to take responsibility because it can't always be the manager’s fault, it's sometimes the players’ fault as well. But the way that we executed the game plan against Atalanta, especially against that man-to-man system, everyone should take the credit because he came up with the idea and the players then executed it. It’s a real togetherness and I'm sure he'll be the first one to say that as well.

Atalanta seemed to run out of ideas did that show that the system worked?

Obviously, they had moments and they started to load up the side of the pitch which can be difficult in those 3v3 or 3v2 situations and you've got to defend that, and then when it comes in the box, I thought the two boys were superb, they won pretty much everything. You’ve just got to defend in different areas, but it was working and there was a little bit of frustration from them then they started chipping things in and we were fairly comfortable in that. It [the game plan] definitely worked and credit to the boys that stuck with that and we grew as the game went on.

There is a reason why Brendan Rodgers is called an elite-level manager, isn't there?

Oh absolutely, absolutely, he's top, top level and I've seen that over so many years now. He’s top level and obviously, he'll feel good about himself after that as well as all the players.

Are you ahead of where you thought you would be after three Champions League games?

It's exciting- we're maybe ahead of where we should be in terms of points. Home games are always important, the next one will be a very difficult game, similar to the Dortmund style the Germans play, it'll be a tough game and we'll have to bring a big level to that as well, but hopefully, we can get on our game and bring the crowd with us and get another positive result.

This is a good pressure to be under though with back-to-back home games coming up, isn't it?

Of course, this is where you want to be, this is where you want to play your football and be testing yourself to the limit against these guys [Atalanta] and Dortmund and Leipzig and all these other teams. That's where you want to be as a footballer and when you come away from games and you've got a result and you've played well then you feel good about yourself and the flip side is when it doesn't go so well.