Callum McGregor admits Celtic 'are too easy to play against' after falling further behind Hearts in Premiership

Callum McGregor has admitted that Celtic are currently “too easy to play against” after losing back-to-back Premiership games.

The Hoops suffered a 3-1 defeat to league leaders Hearts at Tynecastle on Sunday and now trail the Edinburgh side by eight points.

That result came just a week after a 2-0 loss to Dens Park, and the captain insists they must up their game quickly or risk the season getting away from them.

McGregor, who scored Celtic’s goal in Sunday’s defeat, said: “The result wasn’t good enough, elements of the performance were okay, but not for long enough in the game to come here and get a result.

“You’re not going to get anything if you just play a little bit when you have the ball, but don’t when you don’t have the ball.

“I said it last week as well, we are too easy to play against. We don’t really understand the small details in the game that will stop you from conceding goals, then it’s always a reaction thing rather than being proactive and making sure you don’t give up the space.

“That is a learning process. We talk about it all the time, and it will have to sink in at some point, or we will continue to give ourselves a mountain to climb.”

Brendan Rodgers’ side produced what was arguably their best performance of the season on Thursday night when they came back from a goal down to beat Sturm Graz in the Europa League.

Supporters would have been hoping that would have been a springboard to ignite the campaign into life with some big games coming up.

But a convincing win for Hearts at Tynecastle has put the champions back to square one as they prepare for a midweek game against in-form Falkirk before taking on Rangers at Hampden in the League Cup semi-final.

McGregor continued: “When you see how the team played on Thursday night, and see the level we can reach, then it is now about understanding how we got there and replicating it every three days.

“But, at the minute, we are too up and down and inconsistent.

“Hearts were good today, much the same as what you always get when you come here, they scored at good times in the game as well.

“You have to credit them for that; they did what was needed to get a result.”