Callum McGregor clearly knows who is at fault for Celtic’s Champions League exit, and he wasn’t shy about stating it either…

Last night in Linz, while the rest of us were staring at the telly wondering what we’d just watched, Callum McGregor stood in front of a camera and told the truth.

Not the usual truth, mind you.

Not the “we’ll dust ourselves down and go again” pish we get served up after every one of these humiliations.

The actual truth.

And if you were listening properly, you’ll have noticed that he pointed it at a door which isn’t the dressing room door.

He wasn’t in the mood for the usual platitudes, and it showed. Here is what our captain had to say afterwards, as carried by the Daily Record:

“We got what we deserved. We were passive all night.

“We actually looked scared to go and win the game. When you are 3-0 up in the tie it’s psychological.

“We have to suck it up. We apologise to our supporters and the club because there’s no way we should lose that game.

“You sign well and everyone is happy for two, three weeks and then you fall at a big hurdle.

“It’s as much on the players as everyone else. You can’t look for excuses elsewhere.”

Now, go back and read that second last line again.

“It’s as much on the players as everyone else.”

Everyone else.

Who exactly did we think he meant by that?

The kitman?

You don’t say ‘everyone else’ unless there is an everyone else, and our captain can name them

Let’s be fair to the man first, because he was more than fair to us.

He led with the players.

He didn’t hide behind the injuries, he didn’t hide behind a pitch that looked like it had been ploughed, and he didn’t hide behind extra time.

He took his share and he took it square on the chin.

When was the last time you heard that from anybody else connected to this club?

Which is a damn sight more than we’ve had out of anybody wearing a suit at Celtic Park today.

But he left a door hanging open in that answer, and he left it open deliberately.

Because our captain has been at this club long enough to count.

And he can count to five.

Five available midfielders for a Champions League qualifier, and we sent them out there anyway

I wrote this morning that going into a tie of that magnitude with five fit midfielders was suicidal behaviour.

I’m not backing away from a word of it tonight.

When you take five midfielders to Austria, all five of them are playing.

There is no rotation, there is no rest, and there is no plan B – there is only whoever is still standing at the end.

And when the legs went, as legs do in extra time on a ploughed field, we were left reaching for Luke McCowan to protect a Champions League tie.

That is not a slight on McCowan, and I’ll say the same thing I said this morning.

The boy was a victim of circumstance.

He shouldn’t have been anywhere near that situation, and everybody in the ground knew it.

Somebody put him there.

And it wasn’t Martin O’Neill, was it?

Last summer they took the goals out of the team before Almaty, this summer they took the legs out of it before Linz

Because this isn’t a one-off, and that’s exactly what makes McGregor’s line so pointed.

Twelve months ago we went to Kairat Almaty with our forward line dismantled and nobody brought in to replace it.

Last night we went to LASK with our midfield asset-stripped and nobody brought in to replace that either.

Same script, different position on the park.

Does any of that sound even remotely familiar to you?

The one constant is a boardroom that will not spend a penny until the Champions League money is in the bank – and then wonders aloud why we never reach the Champions League.

You’d laugh if it wasn’t costing us £40 million a year.

The question now isn’t how short they left us last night, it’s how short they leave us for the season

And that, for me, is the terrifying bit.

Because we all know what the excuse is going to be from here, don’t we?

We didn’t qualify.

There is no group stage money, so there is no money, so there will be no signings, so make do.

The very failure they engineered becomes the justification for doing nothing about it.

It’s a closed loop, and they’ve been running it for years now.

Silent Mike will retreat into his shell, the absent meddling golfer will say nothing at all, and the window will shut on a squad five midfielders deep with a Europa League campaign and a title defence to get through.

Then again, maybe I’m wrong.

Maybe this is the one that finally shames them into acting before the deadline.

But I’ve watched this board operate for too long to believe it, and so, I suspect, has our captain.

He said it himself last night.

You can’t look for excuses elsewhere.

The problem is that elsewhere is precisely where the excuses live at Celtic, and they’ve got a boardroom to keep them warm.

Over to you, gentlemen…

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