Callum McGregor has insisted that Brendan Rodgers’ calm persona will help to guide Celtic into the group stages of the Champions League.

The Parkhead side failed to bring in another central defender before Thursday night’s 11pm European deadline, although a wildcard arrival could still be on the cards.

With Jozo Simunovic out for at least another couple of weeks – and the Croatian has been injured since the end of January so will not be ready to walk back into the team – and Dedryck Boyata still injured, there is a significant void at the back for Celtic.

Rodgers has insisted that he will not be rushed into bringing in players just for the sake of it, but there has been some accusations that Celtic ought to have moved quicker to get bodies into the squad long before now.

McGregor, though, has urged the Hoops support to put their faith in the former Liverpool manager.

“He has been excellent,” he said. “He spoke to the players and made sure we were all sticking together. He stressed that we are in it together and everyone has to have each other’s backs.

“He has being really positive and you saw with the result on Wednesday night that we turned it around. It wasn’t panic stations. Everything is calm and collected.”

Celtic take on Leicester this evening at Celtic Park as they face the English champions, before they fly out to Kazakhstan on Monday morning.

They play Astana on Wednesday evening on another plastic surface but McGregor believes that having another solid 90 minutes under their belt this weekend can enable Celtic to go into that game in the right frame of mind.

The aim will be to keep the tie alive in the first leg before getting Astana, who took points from Benfica, Galatasaray and Atletico Madrid in last season’s Champions League group stages, come back to Glasgow.

Even, then, though there will still be a play-off round to negotiate as Celtic look to get into the competition properly for the first time since 2013 when Neil Lennon guided them through the qualifiers.

“The games come so quickly, we’re still only four and a bit weeks into pre-season,” said McGregor.

“It’s really important games really early on. We need as much guidance as we can get and hopefully everyone sticks together and we can do it.

“We’ve got Leicester first before Astana and we know that will be another test for us but we’ll be a bit fitter and stronger and hopefully we can take that into the game on Wednesday.

“We’ll just need to be ready for it, prepare properly and go and get a good result.”