Arne Engels has spoken out on being hit by a coin away to Rangers – saying it wasn’t nice to experience for the first time, but he just had to get on with his job.
The Belgian midfielder went down in the corner at Ibrox late on in Celtic‘s 3-0 defeat to their rivals, with boss Brendan Rodgers also targeted in a separate incident. Both clubs have released statements slamming the disgusting scenes and Rodgers said Engels’ incident in particular could have resulted in a lost eye.
Now Engels has spoken out on it for the first time as he said: “I’m good. In the beginning it was a bit sore but in the end it was ok. But it’s not really nice to experience things like that. You want to play your game and enjoy your football. It was not really enjoyable that night. It was not a nice incident.
“You always need to switch on, that’s why you are a football player. You always need to think about the next situation and that’s what everybody is telling you. That’s what I did. You need to perform. It was in the last ten minutes and I still had to play those last ten minutes.
“Sometimes you see things like this (in Belgium and Germany), beer spilling over you and things. But not really people throwing things at your head. It’s never nice and it’s never good to have in the football stadium. You are there to do your job. You guys (the press) never experience things like people throwing coins at you during your work. So it’s never nice to see or experience. But in the end you need to play on.”