Carl Starfelt was once again assured and effective in the centre of the Celtic defence alongside Cameron Carter-Vickers against a Ross County side that joined Dundee United in not being able to force Joe Hart into making a save as the Celtic keeper recorded yet another clean sheet. The Swedish defender, who got called up for national duty last week, spoke to the media after yesterday’s game and brought that calmness and confidence into his press briefing.
For a while Starfelt was the focus of criticism from some supporters but that has died down completely as the defender wins over his doubters. Starting off by his own satisfaction with yesterday’s win and performance, here’s what he said.
“It was very good,” Starfelt told the media, as reported by Scottish Sun, after the 4-0 win over Ross County at Celtic Park yesterday afternoon. “We put in a shift, it felt like, and we scored very early as well which always makes it a lot easier at home.
“All game we played very well and I’m delighted. I feel like we’re getting stronger, and we’ll certainly need to be in the last seven games. I feel like we have many players in good form and physically also. We’re taking steps and getting much stronger — yes, it’s looking good.
“We took another step and played a bit better than we’ve done even in recent games. Today everything was really good, I hope we can keep it up. Now we have two weeks of training and then we go for the last seven (league) games.
Starfelt wasn’t interested in what yesterday win achieved in terms of heaping the pressure onto theRangers. “No, we’re not thinking about (the)Rangers. We know it’s seven (league) games left for us, and that we have everything in our own hands.
“So, we’re just focusing game-by-game and we’re not looking at them. We’ve done it all year, not getting ahead of ourselves, just taking it game- by-game. That’s what we’ll keep doing.
“Giorgos is doing very well. That’s exactly what you want in a striker — he’s scoring goals and taking his opportunities, but also putting in hard work defensively.
“He’s running a lot and you can see defenders weren’t happy to meet him — he’s a big guy as well,” Starfelt added.
On the welcome news last week that his own outstanding form for Celtic has not gone unnoticed elsewhere with a call-up for the Sweden national side being his reward, the Celtic defender was delighted at receiving that news.
“It’s one of my goals, to go with the national team. It’s always a big honour to be there. For me it’s one of the biggest things you can do as a player, to play for your country. I feel like I go there feeling comfortable with my form and performances. I hope I can go there and contribute.”
*theRangers…
