There will be no Celtic player feeling the heat more than Callum McGregor right now.

That’s because McGregor is seen as the main figure out on the pitch, on top of the fact that he is the Celtic captain.

But Paul Slane has been baffled by what McGregor has been saying of late, including talking about Celtic’s tactics ‘like he is the manager’, as he told Open Goal.

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Is Callum McGregor acting like the Celtic manager?

After Celtic’s draw against Dundee United, and before the defeat to Falkirk, McGregor went into detail about what the team is doing wrong from a tactical standpoint.

McGregor claimed that the team ‘don’t do things properly’, and that the shape of the team ‘isn’t right’, with Slane feeling it’s not the skipper’s job, but O’Neill’s, to make those comments.

“Sometimes when you hear him speak, it sounds like he is the manager,” said Slane. 

“It’s wild. I heard him during the week talk about the players need to learn how to play football here. If it’s tight, we need to come out and start again. Then we keep the ball.

“I am like, ‘That isn’t your place.’ If Martin O’Neill wants to go forward whenever he wants, that’s up to him. I feel Callum McGregor speaks as if he has a lot of control there. Could be wrong, but just the way I took it.”

The role McGregor plays at half-time as Celtic captain…

When Celtic collapsed against LASK in Austria, Kasper Schmeichel was on commentary duty for TNT Sports, and he shared some interesting insights about how things work inside the club.

McGregor plays a key role in what is said; in fact, according to Celtic’s former goalkeeper, he speaks first before anyone else.

This is what Schmeichel said at the time:

“Well, it will start with Callum McGregor,” said Schmeichel in the second half of Celtic’s clash in Linz.

“Then it will go to Martin O’Neill. Then there will be a little break. A pause for four or five minutes.

“In that time, Shaun Maloney will be in with the analyst, getting the clips and the things that are needed, in terms of the tactical aspect. Then we will go through them. After that, we are ready to go out again.”

There is nothing wrong with McGregor holding this power, or being critical of how Celtic are performing right now.

The issue is that McGregor himself isn’t performing, with some questioning whether he should be starting, so everything is far more difficult to swallow if he does speak.