Belgium keeper Simon Mignolet has backed Arne Engels to come good at Celtic and for the Red Devils.
The Hoops record £11m signing struggled to make an impact in Wednesday’s Champions League 1-1 draw with fellow countrymen Club Brugge and he was eventually hooked after half-time. Engels is still finding his feet at Parkhead but the 21-year-old has already broken into the Belgium side. Shotstopper Mignolet – who retired from national duty in the summer – admitted the playmaker when he was a kid on the books at Brugge is convinced the Celt has a huge future.
He said: “He is doing really well. I had him in a fair few training sessions at Brugge and you could see he had a really good right foot. He has shown in every single game that he has played here that he can have a really good future, not only with Celtic but also with Belgium. So I hope for him that he keeps playing like that. Luckily, the other night he didn’t score.”
Mignolet was pleased with a Champions League point at Parkhead and he wasn’t surprised by the Celtic style under his old Liverpool boss Brendan Rodgers. The Hoops gaffer splashed out £9m for the Belgian when he was at Anfield and the keeper admitted he’s aways admired Rodgers’s attacking approach.
Mignolet said: “I think you can see it in the team – Celtic keep on playing football. He always wants his team to play from the back, to have the ball, to be in possession and you saw that throughout the whole game.
“They didn’t play one long ball in the whole game. That is probably why they came back in the second half. We were pushed back towards our own box and couldn’t come out of the pressure any more, although we had those chances on the counter attack. That is due to his football philosophy.”
Mignolet through Brugge had Celtic where they wanted them – but in the end was happy with a point after the Parkhead men piled on the pressure after the break.
He said: “Celtic were better in the second half together with the support of the fans. We didn’t come out of the pressure enough in the second half, which we could have done. Although we had some chances on the counter attack, Kasper Schmeichel made a good save and we had a goal disallowed, “Celtic had the better part of the game in the second half. In the end, it was a fair result for both teams.”
Celtic have the knockout stages within reach with eight points from five games – and Brugge are in the hunt just one point back. Mignolet would love to see both sides progress and said: “Well, I hope so! Especially Brugge of course. For us, it was a really important game. If we had won we would have had nine points and that would have been a massive step towards the play-off rounds. It was the same for Celtic. What you saw in the game was both teams wanted to win and both teams had a chance to win. But in the end I think 1-1 is a fair result.
“We have matched every single team so far in the Champions League, Borussia Dortmund, Aston Villa, AC Milan and Celtic. I haven’t seen the Celtic games in detail, but what I have seen is a team that wants to play football and a team that wants to win in the Champions League and us as well.”
Elsewhere Belgian World Cup hero Marc Degryse reckons Celtic star Daizen Maeda scored the ‘perfect goal’ and admitted he couldn’t believe how he managed it. The Japanese ace rescued a point for the Hoops with a wonder goal in the second half in a pulsating 1-1 draw against Club Brugge in the Champions League.
And ex-Brugge, Anderlecht and Sheffield Wednesday star Degryse, who played in two World Cups, was in awe of the strike in his duties as a Belgian TV pundit. He said: “A goal like that is almost impossible to stop.
“It was just a brilliant goal. How Daizen Maeda manages to beat Simon Mignolet from an angle like that I will never know. A perfect goal.
“I saw the young defender Joaquin Seys with his head in his hands after the goal and he clearly blamed himself for it. But he really shouldn’t torture himself about a moment like that. It was a goal of a genius.”