Rare downtime had Callum McGregor keeping tabs on 4 Celtic new boys as trip abroad recharged skipper's batteries

Tireless Callum McGregor could have given the Energiser Bunny a run for its money in recent years.

And, a bit like that famous relentless rabbit, it’s difficult for the Celtic skipper finding the off switch. McGregor got some downtime over the last fortnight in the first international break since he called time on his Scotland career. The 31-year-old grabbed some sun abroad – and he admitted he only caught some of the national team’s Nations League defeats to Poland and Portugal.

He wasn’t quite sitting with his feet up, sinking cans of beer and munching pasties from Greggs while on a Netflix boxset marathon but it was a chance for the midfielder to recharge his batteries. McGregor – who scooped the player of the month award for August – smiled: “Aye, an old school summer! No, it was good actually. The first part of the week we were in here at Lennoxtown and then I managed to get to Spain for a few days so a wee bit of warm weather and come back with the cold as usual!

“But it’s always nice to get two or three days off in a row because you go for large spells of the year and you don’t get many days off at all so it’s just nice to change the scenery and then when you come back in you’ve got that energy again. I watched a little bit of it actually, I probably missed the first half an hour of the Poland game then I turned it on and the boys did really well.

“The guys were unlucky and they performed really well. So the next step is just to try and get some points next month. I just tried to switch off and just tried to stay away from football.

“Well, football’s one of these things where it just follows you about your life anyway. So even if you do try and switch off there are always people trying to remind you of what’s