AMID the din and the chaos of Ibrox, with Rangers rampant and already a goal to the good within the opening few minutes, Celtic desperately needed someone to step up and settle their nerves. Someone who could reach inside themselves and pull them out of the hole they seemed to be fast disappearing into.

In that moment, when they needed their captain, Callum McGregor stood up to the plate. And then some.

McGregor gathered the ball inside the Rangers half, got his head down and drove directly at their defence, wriggling through three challenges and doggedly forcing the ball into the area. A couple of shots later and a spill from home goalkeeper Allan McGregor, and the ball was in the Rangers net.

Suddenly, Ibrox was silenced, save for the 700 or so delirious Celtic supporters shoehorned into the far corner of the stadium, and from that point on the visitors never looked back.

With that run, McGregor hadn’t only dragged his team up the pitch, back into this match, and helped them to seize the momentum in the game, he had almost dragged them over the finishing line in the title race.

This performance from McGregor may well be the moment he truly arrived as a Celtic captain, showing beyond all doubt – in the toughest venue in the most arduous of circumstances – that he is fit to wear the armband.

“It was a huge effort,” McGregor said. “To go a goal down so early in the game but then recover.

“We got ourselves level and then to go in 2-1 at half-time was superb and probably just what we needed in the game.

“That gave us the impetus to come out in the second half and be strong, be compact. You are always going to come under pressure when you come here so it was a huge effort and performance from the group.

“There is obviously the chaos that is going on [when we lost the early goal] and we tried to rely on our principles and our team shape to get us through that.

“That’s been a feature of the game, we get it wide and we bounce it inside and it just seemed to be on at that point to go and drive. We got it in the box and square it and we get the goal, which is great.

“I think the most important thing was to rely on the principles of the team when there are difficult moments. We understand our roles and what the manager wants and we have to go and deliver it.

“It was good to get through that first little phase of the game and then get ourselves level and we had a bit more comfort in the game. In the second half we had real good resilience to get through it.

“It’s my first win here as captain, it’s superb and I’ve got thank the lads for that, it was a real team effort.

“Everyone came together, running hard for each other, making blocks, making tackles, everything.

“So, it was a real team performance and that show everyone is together in there.

“It was brilliant for the fans to get back in, we just wish there was more of them, but hopefully we’ve sent them home happy and the millions watching around the world.”

They certainly achieved that. And if they can keep their heads in the final six games of the season, they will deliver a league title that had seemed a hugely unlikely prospect at the start of this season. From the outside, at least.

There were many who felt this may be a transition season for Celtic as new manager Ange Postecoglou performed major surgery on his squad over the summer, a theory that looked to be being borne out as they lost three of their first six Premiership matches.

They have managed to turn that notion on its head though, with this win giving them a six-point lead at the top of the table, and a 15-goal advantage too, with just those handful of games still to navigate.

McGregor says he knew early on in pre-season though that this group of Celtic players could win the league, and he has now urged them to stay humble in order to make good on his prediction.

 

“It’s obviously been a huge effort, a huge turnaround for the club and from the manager and the players who have come in,” he said.

“But I said it from day one when I saw this group of players come in and train, I knew very quickly that it wasn’t a transition for us: we wanted to win, the players were hungry to win, the manager is super hungry and those are the demands he puts on the group.

“We just seem to be getting better and we’re facing more challenges together as a group, and I think when you do that you give yourselves a really good base for the season. 

“That’s where we are just now but we understand there is still a lot of football to be played. We don’t come off it, we come back in tomorrow, we work hard, and we look forward to the weekend as well.

“I think we’ve got good guys in there anyway that are not even thinking about getting carried away at all.

“We’ll come in tomorrow, recover, and look to the weekend. That will be another challenge, the manager will put the same demands on us as he did today.

“I think that’s the beauty with this group of players, they are just so hungry to win and do well, and when you have that every day it stands you in good stead.”