Callum McGregor has apologised to Celtic’s travelling support for the Champions League horror show in Germany.
Refusing to offer excuses for a humiliating 7-1 thrashing to Borussia Dortmund, the Parkhead captain admitted the result was unacceptable.
It was the third time Celtic have conceded seven goals away from home in the Champions League under Brendan Rodgers, following heavy defeats at Barcelona and Paris Saint-Germain during the manager’s first spell in charge.
The Scottish champions travel to face Europa League winners Atalanta in three weeks’ time.
And McGregor believes he and his team-mates need to find a way to stop games running away from them against Europe’s elite.
The Celtic skipper led his players towards the 3,500 travelling fans in a corner of the Signal Iduna Park at the final whistle.
And, speaking after another night to forget in Europe, the skipper said: ‘We can only apologise to them because when you play for Celtic and get beat 7-1, it is not good enough.
Celtic skipper Callum McGregor insisted his side had no excuses after their defeat
Celtic manager Brendan Rodgers has a woeful record in the Champions League
‘Credit to them for sticking with us and we thank them for that. We know that can’t happen again.
‘Everybody will have a pop and that is what happens when you play for Celtic.
I hate trying to make excuses when you get beat 7-1 because it is not acceptable.
‘There are still positives because the season has started really well and in the game against Slovan we were excellent.
It shows you what the level is like when you don’t quite play to it and they have a good night.
That made things really difficult for us.
‘We wanted to be aggressive in the game and we have been humbled a bit. We need to have that learning curve for the next games that are coming up.
‘We need to bring a better level of game than we did against Dortmund. We also need to learn from that when the game starts to get away from you. Can we shut up shop a bit and steady the flow of the game for five minutes?
‘It is not all doom and gloom but there are no excuses when you lose 7-1.’
Despite Daizen Maeda cancelling out an early penalty from BvB skipper Emre Can, Dortmund turned Celtic’s midfield at will and unleashed wave after wave of attack on an opponent spooked by their intensity and finishing in front of goal.
Losing 5-1 at half-time, the visitors became more and more ragged as the game went on, conceding another two goals on a night when Dortmund could have hit double figures.
Celtic’s Alex Valle feels the pain after the 7-1 drubbing to Borussia Dortmund on Tuesday
Acknowledging the need to find a balance between attack and defence against a higher class of opponent than they meet in the SPFL, McGregor added: ‘It is difficult to change the mindset as you want to be aggressive — that is the way we play and that is in our DNA.
‘It is just drummed into us for so long that we think the best form of defence is attack, but when you are playing against this level of quality player then they have shown us that there are other ways to do it.
‘We don’t need to be so aggressive, especially when the game is turning against you. It is just something we have to learn from.
‘We want to maintain that aggressiveness as we got a good result at home and we want to be aggressive throughout the tournament, but we reached a level against Dortmund where they were better than us.
‘They were excellent. They were really good. They had huge speed at the top of the pitch, they had a great ideas and good technical players who could execute the game that they were looking to play.
The level of finishing was outstanding.’
