IF any Celtic supporters are nervous ahead of tomorrow’s League Cup Final against Hibernian due to the injury woes currently being suffered by their team, then Callum McGregor may be able to allay their fears.

The Celtic captain – thus far at least – simply doesn’t lose cup finals at Hampden. And he has been involved in a few. As a Celtic player, he has played in four Scottish Cup Finals and four League Cup Finals, as well as three Youth Cup Finals. He has won the lot.

Even as an unused sub in a League Cup Final and another Youth Cup Final, his lucky streak at the national stadium held firm, and he is hoping that can carry on tomorrow against Hibs - and beyond.

“My record’s pretty good there,” McGregor said. “Obviously we hope to continue that on Sunday but that becomes a lot of hard work – preparation, dedication and a wee bit of good luck as well along the road. I’ll need to kick on all those things to have a good day, but here’s hoping.

“Everybody would love it to be an easy game with no pressure, but finals are never like that. There’s always a period in the game when you’re under pressure and the other team are in the game, so the experience you can draw on can help you through that and stand you in good stead. You need all that.”

The one difference on this trip to a Hampden cup final for McGregor of course is that he will lead his team out of the tunnel, and will be the first one up the national stadium steps if Celtic do win the trophy.

Even as captain though, he doesn’t see any reason to fix something that isn’t broken in terms of the way he will approach the occasion.

“In terms of preparation and doing the right things going into the game, it’ll feel pretty similar,” he said.

“The worst thing you can do is overthink it and start doing things differently. It’s a process and if you trust the process and it works you stick with that. There’s obviously the tag of being captain but I’m not even thinking about that. I just want to perform and help the team to take the trophy and that’s my sole focus going into the game.”

For McGregor, a trophy success so early in the Ange Postecoglou era would be a real statement of intent, and nigh-on a miracle given the base he started from.

“When we all came back in the summer things were up in their air,” he said. “The manager has been great and identified the players he wanted and we managed to get them in and fed them into the team.

“Very quickly since then we’ve managed to go on a good run and the football’s been good and everybody’s been talking about it. You need to then be successful which we’ve done by reaching the final of the first competition.

“If we get over the line and win the trophy it’s a good indicator that everything you’ve done since the summer is working and gives the players confidence to see how far we can go.”

The Celtic players go into the match tomorrow still riding the high of their last-gasp win against Ross County on Wednesday night.

McGregor acknowledges that Anthony Ralston’s injury-time header could have far-reaching consequences beyond just the trip to Dingwall, with the Celtic players buoyed by the resiliency forming within their ranks.

“That’s the other side of football,” he said. “The personality side of football. When things are going against you, you go down to 10 men, it’s then about staying calm.

“You need to score, but it’s sticking to the process, it sticking to how we play and the way the manager is asking us to play and having that bravery to go and do it.

“And when you get the winner like that, it’s not by luck. It’s by hard work, by design and by the way we want to play and that gets you the rewards.

“It was a really good moment for the squad and showing what we are made of.”