Arne Engels insists Celtic are ready to cement a Champions League last 16 play-off spot with an even bigger performance than the one which blew away Leipzig.
Victory over struggling Swiss side Young Boys on Wednesday night would all but secure a top 24 place in the league phase. That would good enough to see them advance to the play-offs with a game to spare. And Hoops’ record signing Engels insists Brendan Rodgers’ side can produce their best show yet on the big stage – even better than the one which left Leipzig reeling in November. He said: “I think it was maybe one of our best games.
“But it’s again Champions League and again we need to have that kind of level to be our best and to perform as we did then. We need to look forward. That’s in the past, that was in November, so it’s already two or three months behind us.
“We’ve improved as a squad, we’ve improved as players, so I think we are even better now and I think we can put on an even more complete game. We are really ready as a squad and we feel also in big games against good teams that we can do really well and that we can perform.
“So of course as a team I think we all feel that we belong to the knockouts and we will do everything to go there. The supporters will be there again and we will be there so it will be a really crazy night hopefully.
“It’s always unbelievable to play at Celtic Park, especially at European nights. I’m really looking forward to that, feeling that again, and the team is also really looking forward to it.”
Young Boys sit bottom of the league phase having lost all six of their games to this point. But Engels knows it would be a huge mistake to take their foot off the gas against the Swiss even if they’ve managed only three goals and shipped 22 in their six outings.
He said: “It’s too easy to think that. It’s the Champions League and every team that is in the Champions League has really a lot of qualities, otherwise they wouldn’t be in the Champions League. So we need to be on top of our game and I think we are ready for it. As a team we are focused on what we need to do and like we showed already, these weeks we can create a lot of chances and I hope we will do the same again.”
Celtic are on course for a domestic treble on top of progressing in Europe but Engels, an £11million signing from FC Augsburg in the summer, won’t look any further ahead than the next 90 minutes. He said: “Everybody is doing everything they can and the team is also doing everything that they can. We are such a nice squad that we all want to improve as players but also as a squad together and that hopefully can reach really nice goals at the end of the season.
“We need to just keep on looking to the next game and not really to the future. The next game is now Wednesday, a big game for us, so everybody is concentrated and really looking forward to it.
“I have played a lot of big games already, but the Champions League is always a nice platform to play. It’s always nice to reach the next round and hopefully we are capable of doing that.”
* Engels was speaking to promote this week’s Paradise Windfall lottery which will allow fans to win big with a new £15,000 top prize for this week’s Champions League match.