Carl Starfelt took his turn to speak to the media this afternoon ahead of tomorrow evening’s cinch Premiership match against St Mirren at Celtic Park. The Swedish defender sometimes comes in for more criticism that he deserves, certainly much of it is baffling to many supporters and it certainly must be to Ange Postecoglou who continually selects the player in his starting eleven even with the likes of Stephen Welsh and Christopher Jullien waiting in the wings.
His first task this afternoon was to report back on how the players were feeling after the dropped points at Easter Road on Sunday. “We wanted to win the game,” Starfelt noted. “We played a decent game and had enough opportunities to win it but that’s football and sometimes you don’t put the ball in the net. We got a draw at a tough away game and we wanted more but we are still in a good place. We played fairly good and we will keep playing our football.”
On Celtic’s recent performances not being as emphatic as below: “We didn’t come up to our standards in both Bodo/Glimt games and other than that we have been playing well,” the Celtic defender admitted. “We have been doing very well in the league and against Hibernian, we dominated the game and created a lot more chances than they did. We didn’t score the winning goal and maybe we have to be more clinical in front of the goal.”
It wasn’t only Celtic who dropped points on Sunday and the unpredictable nature of the league at this stage in the season could lead to more twists and turns in the run-in to the title being won or lost. “A lot can happen. There are a lot of games left. It’s a lot of tough games. We are not looking ahead too much. We are focusing on every game like we have done all season.”
Does the game against St Mirren give Celtic the chance to click into top gear? “Of course, we know it will be a tough game. Every game comes with different challenges. As a team, we are standing together and we are very keen to get a good result and performance against St Mirren,” Starfelt stated.
“I am expecting a tough game. I am expecting a pretty tight game. They will probably do anything to stop us from scoring goals. I think we just have to focus on ourselves a lot and play our football and we’ve been showing recently in the league that if we play our football then we have very good opportunities to win games. We just have to keep playing our game.”
On the tightness of the title race, there are no concerns on the mentality side of things with the Celtic squad, according to Carl Starfelt. “It’s not too challenging, for me anyway, we are just trying to be in the present take things game-by-game.
“We know that there is still a lot to play for and when it comes to one or two games left maybe it will be more challenging, as of right now there are a lot of points to play for and we have to focus on every game and the importance of them. We can’t look too far ahead as every game will be tough.”
On the way he is playing himself and how the Celtic defence is performing Starfelt had this to say. “I think we are playing good. We are not giving the opposition too many chances. We have been playing with each other for a while now and I think we are getting very comfortable with each other. I feel like we have a lot of players in good shape as well. I feel that I am in good shape and I am enjoying my football.”
And Starfelt wasn’t taking any chat about blaming the forwards for not scoring in the stalemate at Easter Road. “It doesn’t have to do with the forwards or midfielders. We are one team. We don’t see it like that. We defend and attack together. It was frustrating but it was for the whole team and I am not trying to put anything on the attackers as we are one team and I think it was more a matter of small margins.”
Asked how his own game has developed and changed working under Ange Postecoglou, Starfelt had this to say. “I think I am developing like all the other players who we have talked about before. It is a different style to what many players are used to and it is different demands with a different coach. You have to adapt to them.
“I feel like I am adapting more and more and I feel like I am in a good place. I feel more secure in my game than I did a couple of months ago and that’s good.”
Rather surprisingly St Mirren have collected more points in the league outside of Celtic than any other team, so tomorrow night is the meeting of th top two form teams in the Scottish Premiership. Does that tell Starfelt that he’s joined a more competitive league than he perhaps though back in July? “I think it is also normal that everywhere I have played before that it has always been competitive games,” he replied.
“It is always hard to take the three points in every game and that is just football. Every game will be a hard game and everybody will come up with a good gameplan and play on their strengths or whatever. It is normal I think and I did not expect it to be anything other than a tough league.”
Asked about supporters getting tense watching the games as the team chases a late winner, the Swede was full of praise for the Celtic fans. “I feel the fans have been very supportive all the way through. The supporters have pushed us through to get a lot of late goals and that’s what I have been feeling.
“There has been a lot of late goals and they have been winning goals. That has been a common theme throughout this season. We have been scoring late in the games one of the reasons is that our fans have been supporting us so well. We are very happy to have them here and they keep supporting us.”
Last question was about Celtic conceding goals from set-pieces recently whilst having trouble scoring goals from set-pieces, so how much work is done on the training pitch on set-pieces attacking and defending?
“We are working on all the elements of our game and set-pieces is one of them. In some games, we have been letting in goals from set-pieces and every week we don’t want to let in any goals. We are trying to improve on that and we have been letting in very few goals from other ways in the game. We are working on set-pieces and the last game was good,” Carl Starfelt stated.
Watch Carl Starfelt speaking to the media today, including representatives from the Celtic Fan Media below…
