Celtic's European Collapse: McGregor's Fury After LASK Defeat

Callum McGregor has lived through almost every kind of European humiliation Celtic have managed to conjure in the last decade. On Tuesday night in Linz, he finally snapped.

Not in a tantrum, not in a dressing-room door-kicking frenzy. That is not his way. He did it with cold, controlled anger – and with words that cut far deeper than any pundit’s verdict.

“Passive.”

“Scared.”

“Now we’ll see what people are made of.”

For a captain who has worn every scar of Celtic’s European failures while collecting their domestic medals, this was different. This was McGregor, usually the calm in the chaos, staring into the wreckage of a 4-0 aggregate lead and calling it what it was: a collapse without backbone.

A familiar horror, but worse

Trying to rank this among Celtic’s long list of European disasters is almost pointless. Was it worse than the 7-0 in Barcelona? The 7-1 in Paris against PSG? The 7-1 against Borussia Dortmund or the 6-0 against Atletico Madrid? More damaging than the play-off exits to Midtjylland, Ferencvaros, AEK Athens or Cluj? More embarrassing than drawing a blank for 210 minutes against Kairat Almaty and then fluffing three of five penalties?

Pick your poison. The list is long, the pain repetitive.

What is beyond argument is that losing a 4-0 advantage to LASK was a capitulation of a different kind. Celtic were not outclassed by a superpower. They were outfought, outmuscled and out-believed by a side that simply refused to accept their supposed fate.

McGregor has seen all of this before. He has survived it all. But it was hard to recall him as openly furious as he was in the aftermath in Austria.

From control to chaos

It was McGregor who seemed to have settled everything. His deflected opener on the night, stretching the aggregate lead to 4-0, looked like the moment LASK’s resistance finally snapped.

LASK had started brightly in both legs, carved out chances in Glasgow and again in the early minutes in Linz. Yet here they were, four goals down on aggregate. It felt like a punch to the gut for the Austrians.

How many of those can a team take before they stop swinging? As it turned out, a lot.

Celtic helped them back into the fight. Painfully. Naively. A week earlier, Celtic’s attacking fluency and stylish finishing had been hailed as a sign of growth, a suggestion that they had finally added some substance to the usual swagger.

That illusion lasted until Benjamin Nygren rolled a calamitous pass across his own half and handed LASK their first goal of the night. Thirty-two minutes gone, 4-1 on aggregate, and yet Celtic looked rattled. It sounded absurd. It was not.

Three minutes into the second half, the fear took a visible hold. Auston Trusty was brushed aside far too easily as LASK made it 4-2. One challenge lost, one goal conceded, and suddenly the legs started to tremble.

Trusty was exposed repeatedly, but he was not alone. LASK sensed the frailty and went after it, over and over.

Ten minutes later came the third. By then, parts of Celtic’s team had abandoned all composure. This was no longer a slow bleed. It was a rush to the cliff edge.

Camilo Duran, so sharp and decisive in Glasgow, disappeared from the contest. Kasper Hogh ran himself into the ground but made no dent. Passes went astray. Attacks broke down. The structure vanished. Celtic looked like a team who had forgotten how to think under pressure.

Rabbits in headlights have looked more assured.

McGregor tried to marshal, cajole, steady. He could not cut through the panic.

O’Neill’s torment on the touchline

On the sideline, Martin O’Neill looked like the weight of the night had aged him a decade. He would later call it one of the worst experiences of his football life and accept responsibility. He was right to. He was also right that he could not carry it alone.

He emptied his bench, five substitutions in 12 frantic minutes, each one a plea for control that never arrived. Nothing changed. Celtic did not register a shot on target in the second half of normal time. Nor in extra time.

For long stretches they existed only in the way a man clings to a cliff edge exists. Everyone knew how it would end. The only question was when.

LASK’s fourth, in the 90th minute, merely confirmed the inevitable. By then they had taken 33 shots at Celtic’s goal, finishing on 40 across the night, to add to the 20 attempts they had in Glasgow. Sixty shots over two legs. Against Celtic. In a £40m tie.

It was a rout disguised as a comeback.

Cameron Carter-Vickers hobbled on one leg. Hogh looked similarly spent. Wave after wave of LASK attacks crashed forward, and Celtic tried to hold them off with a makeshift back four of Anthony Ralston, Dane Murray, Trusty and Liam Scales.

This was not the defensive line of a club that talks about Champions League standards. It was the defensive line of a club that had gambled on getting by and been brutally exposed.

The fifth goal felt almost merciful. Another Celtic mistake, another player in the wrong place making the wrong choice. Nygren and Trusty had already had their nightmare moments. This time it was Luke McCowan. Hapless. Helpless. Out of the Champions League.

Beyond disarray

The closing minutes drifted. LASK even missed a penalty for 6-1. Miguel Freckleton, once of St Mirren and now at the start of a new chapter in Austria, slalomed into the Celtic box and, briefly, looked like he might add another.

All credit to him. But when a late substitute, just in the door, can glide through you and look like a serious attacking force in a handful of minutes, it says everything about the state of your team.

By then Celtic were beyond disarray. They were spooked. Out-fought. Out-run. Out-played. The ruthless, free-scoring side from Glasgow a week earlier had been an illusion, a glossy highlight reel masking psychological fragility and a soft centre.

No one could reasonably have forecast a collapse from 4-0 up. Yet here it was, in all its grim detail.

The squad flaws were laid bare. There is no reliable back-up left-back to Kieran Tierney. The need for a physically imposing midfielder, a player with stature who will not be bullied, has been obvious for years. Celtic still do not have one.

They have done some smart business in the market, but not nearly enough of it. They are in net profit this summer. The “A word” – ambition – will come roaring back now, and with justification.

When you finish a £40m match with a back four of Ralston, Murray, Trusty and Scales, you have not done your work properly. Not in recruitment. Not in planning. Not on the night, on the pitch or off it.

The financial cost is huge. The damage to self-worth is harder to quantify but just as real. Celtic thought they had left this stage behind, that the days of being undone by Kairat, Midtjylland, Ferencvaros, Cluj and AEK Athens belonged to a different era.

They are right back there. Same questions. Same failings. Same pain.

And now, incredibly, one more name gets added to the roll call of European torment: LASK.