The Callum McGregor rumour is killed off

Callum McGregor hasn’t been served with a Notice of Complaint and isn’t putting in a fast track appeal against a one match suspension ruling him out of Saturday’s Glasgow Derby.

The desperate podcast hosted by Steve Conroy and Des Roach opted to highlight an incident in the opening minutes of Saturday’s match against Hearts which their media buddies were happy to run with.

It doesn’t require much to build up hope among the Gullible & Deluded with a number of Ibrox fan media accounts trying to push the SFA into action.

Had there been anything to complain about Steven Naismith would have made a song and dance about it in his post-match interviews. Not a word of complaint was heard.

It’s the hope that kills them, again. pic.twitter.com/lz4qzmfT2P

— Celtic365 (@videocelts) May 7, 2024

With Celtic’s captain back to his best and Reo Hatate starting in the last six matches Brendan Rodgers will have a much changed midfield compared to the one that came away with a 3-3 draw at Ibrox last month.

Hatate was starting just his second Celtic match in five months when he was named for the match while McGregor had been out for five weeks when he appeared as a 65th minute substitute for his Japanese team-mate.

In recent weeks the preferred midfield trio of Matt O’Riley, Hatate and McGregor have been getting back together, a combination that was barely seen in the first eight months of the season.

A year ago Aaron Mooy was included in the mix, going into Saturday’s match Rodgers has reliable back up options in Paulo Bernardo and Tomoki Iwata.

The partnership of McGregor, Hatate and O’Riley famously made their mark in the emphatic 3-0 Derby victory in February 2022 which took Celtic into top place, a position that they have held for over two years with the exception of a couple of weeks earlier this year.

While Rodgers’ Starting XI can be accurately guessed at five days before kick-off there is much more uncertainly at Ibrox.

James Tavernier and John Souttar will start in defence with the other two slots up for grabs, John Lundstram and Mohamed Diomanse look certain to start in midfield but beyond that there are a number of options with Todd Cantwell’s far from certain to start the match with Dujon Sterling and Tom Lawrence more reliable options.

CLICK HERE for Sun story on McGregor VAR review.

CLICK HERE for Celtic fans celebrate in Santa Ponsa.