The Celtic captain struck into the top corner from 25 yards to earn a win that looked unlikely for the majority of the game in Paisley.<\/p>\n
The champions failed to register an effort on target until stoppage-time and McGregor\u2019s winner came beyond the four minutes of added time that the match officials had signalled.<\/p>\n
The hosts had earlier come closest to a breakthrough through Conor McMenamin, who hit the post after missing from close range.<\/p>\n
They also had the ball in the net when Liam Scales sent it past team-mate Kasper Schmeichel but the goal was disallowed for offside against McMenamin.<\/p>\n
Celtic looked set to drop points for a fifth time in 12 Premiership games but they put pressure on Hearts before the leaders\u2019 trip to Aberdeen on Sunday.<\/p>\n
The build-up to the game had been overshadowed by Celtic\u2019s abandoned annual general meeting, which saw the board jeered and principal shareholder Dermot Desmond\u2019s son, Ross, hit back at critics and brand a section of fans \u201cbullies\u201d.<\/p>\n
Anti-board sentiment and songs against Desmond were aired throughout the game and the winner was followed by a loud rendition of \u201csack the board\u201d.<\/p>\n
St Mirren had the upper hand in the early stages and came very close when Declan John drove forward and drilled the ball across the face of goal.<\/p>\n
McMenamin stretched and got a foot to the ball but his touch just took it out of the reach of Jayden Richardson and just past the post.<\/p>\n
McMenamin hit the post from 20 yards after a half-cleared corner and Miguel Freckleton shot over after another set-piece.<\/p>\n
The closest Celtic came in the first half was when Sebastian Tounekti cut inside Richardson and fired inches over.<\/p>\n
Johnny Kenny had a decent chance after Daizen Maeda won the ball but the new Republic of Ireland international sliced well wide.<\/p>\n
Celtic\u2019s interim management team of Martin O\u2019Neill and Shaun Maloney made a half-time change as Luke McCowan replaced Kenny, which allowed Maeda to play through the middle.<\/p>\n
The champions asserted themselves in possession and territory but not chances.<\/p>\n
They had a penalty appeal rejected by Kevin Clancy when McGregor\u2019s shot hit the elbow of Killian Phillips from close range.<\/p>\n
Maeda almost got through the middle of an organised Saints defence twice, but he was stopped by Alex Gogic \u2013 by a foul just outside the box \u2013 and Miguel Freckleton\u2019s last-ditch tackle.<\/p>\n
St Mirren looked dangerous in moments despite dropping deeper for long spells. Richardson had a shot blocked, Keanu Baccus saw a curling effort held by Schmeichel and the offside flag denied them in the 69th minute.<\/p>\n
McMenamin was in front of Scales as the Celtic defender scooped the ball towards goal as he prevented Phillips\u2019 flick reaching the St Mirren midfielder.<\/p>\n
Saints had a good chance late in the game when John received a return pass but the left-back shot straight at Schmeichel.<\/p>\n
Celtic finally worked Shamal George, when Dane Murray\u2019s header looped into the St Mirren goalkeeper\u2019s hands.<\/p>\n
That looked to be the final chance but McGregor fired into the top corner to spark a pitch invasion of celebrating Celtic supporters at the death.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Celtic captain struck into the top corner from 25 yards to earn a win that looked unlikely…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":154792,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[5082,42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-154791","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-celtic-fc","9":"tag-headlines","10":"tag-news","11":"tag-top-news","12":"tag-top-stories","13":"tag-topnews","14":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154791","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=154791"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154791\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/154792"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=154791"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=154791"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=154791"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}