Yesterday we saw the rarely seen Callum McGregor. Not just a Celtic captain, but a Scottish football great.

One of the most satisfying things about yesterday—and let’s be honest, the whole thing was very satisfying—was the captain’s performance.

A couple of players stood out in particular, but for me, the best of them all, as I said in my match report, was Callum McGregor. I thought he was phenomenal. He ran the whole show from the middle of the pitch, his goal was excellent, and his all-around play was brilliant.

Callum has his critics—if you can believe that. I know a couple of them myself, one in particular who never gives him credit for anything, although I suspect he’ll enjoy reading that! But Callum’s real critics aren’t among Celtic’s supporters.

They’re in the media, the same people who still maintain that he never reached his full potential because he chose to spend most of his career at Celtic Park. They lament—or claim to lament—what McGregor might have been.

In fact, they lament what McGregor actually is and where he plays his football and how successful that partnership has been.

McGregor has worked under two of the most progressive football managers in this club’s history. Two managers who have undoubtedly taken his game to new heights. Brendan is the absolute best thing that has ever happened to his career.

Everything about McGregor’s game is excellent.

You see it in his passing, his tackling, his reading of the game. But because you don’t see it all the time, it’s easy to forget just how technically brilliant he is when he’s on the ball and running with it. Yesterday, he showed off all his technical skills—both with the goal he scored and the one he almost got.

We all talk about the wingers and how good they are with the ball at their feet, but McGregor is as good as anyone in the team when running at people. It’s how he scores so many goals. It’s why I keep saying that I still think his best position is further forward, playing just behind the strikers as an attacking midfielder. If he played there, he would hit double figures every season.

I understand why he doesn’t. I understand why Brendan plays him in the defensive midfield role. He has been polished into a gem of a player in that position. But you don’t see enough of his technical skill there.

You see his mental strength, his aggression, his leadership. The only real glimpse of his technical ability in that role is in his range of passing. But when McGregor is moving with the ball, it’s poetry in motion. And I just wish we saw more of it. Because when he’s in full flow, like he was at times yesterday, you’re reminded that we have an elite-level midfielder here—one of the best players on this island in his position.

And it’s a small gripe because what McGregor does in his current role, he does brilliantly. But those who claim he never realised his full potential at Celtic only say that because they don’t watch him every week.

They don’t see those moments when he gets to show off his close control, his technical skill, his ability to hit the target. And it’s a shame. Not that it will stop them peddling their incessant rubbish about how he sold himself short.

McGregor has always been clear about who he is and what he wanted from his career. And he has got all of that and more. Scottish football should be glad to have had him. It should be grateful that a player of his calibre wanted to stay here.

Because one of our little national peculiarities seems to be encouraging our best players to leave. To push them away from Scottish football.

Not this guy. Even if they’d been pushing him, he would not have gone. Even if they tried, they couldn’t have made him leave.

I’m sure there have been offers. We’ve probably turned down sums that would make people on the board wince. But McGregor is not just any other player. He’s the beating heart of this team. He’s the one player the board knows they can approach about interest from other clubs and he’ll wave it away as of no consequence to him.

Have there been moments where he’s wanted to test himself against the best in England every week? I’m sure there have. I’m sure there have been times he’s wondered what it would be like to play in Germany, Italy, or Spain.

But he’s a multimillionaire who has made his living playing at the heart of a really good, really determined, really outstanding Celtic team. And as I said in my last piece, he is the key to this side. He is the leader that the Ibrox club doesn’t have. Because he drives other players, he motivates those around him, and he is the shining example—not just to new signings, but to those coming through the ranks.

He will go down not only as a club legend but as a club icon. Those of us lucky enough to have watched him will talk about him for the rest of our lives. Honestly, he’s as good as any player we’ve seen at this club in the last 20 or 30 years.

And yesterday, especially going forward, was one of those days that proved it.

Photo by Joe Prior/Visionhaus via Getty Images