Arne Engels: Celtic have nothing to prove in Glasgow Derby

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The Celtic Star

·10 de marzo de 2025

Arne Engels: Celtic have nothing to prove in Glasgow Derby

Arne Engels has declared that Celtic have nothing to prove this Sunday in the Glasgow Derby…

Adam Idah of Celtic celebrates scoring the second goal with teammate Arne Engels and Cameron Carter-Vickers during the Scottish Gas Scottish Cup Quarter-Final match between Celtic and Hibernian at Celtic Park on March 09, 2025.. (Photo by Ian MacNicol/Getty Images)

The Belgian midfielder and his teammates will welcome Barry Ferguson and his band of misfits to Celtic Park, for the third showdown between the sides this season and the final one at home.

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The first one at Paradise back in September saw the Hoops run out comfortable winners against a team they looked miles ahead of, both on and off the pitch it has to be said. Then in the return fixture at Ibrox on 2 January, Celtic just didn’t show up on that occasion unfortunately, leaving it clear for Philippe Clement and his team to catch us cold, in the midst of a punishing domestic and European schedule.

Despite that setback, the Bhoys are sitting miles clear at the summit of Scottish football and can wrap up the league title before the split, ensuring four-in-a-row under Brendan Rodgers is concluded. This chasm that exists should be enough for anyone to know that no matter what happened in Govan this New Year, the team don’t have to prove their credentials to anyone.

Arne Engels of Celtic is seen during the Scottish Gas Scottish Cup Quarter-Final match between Celtic and Hibernian at Celtic Park on March 09, 2025. (Photo by Ian MacNicol/Getty Images)

Speaking on the subject, the club’s record signing from FC Augsburg in the summer for £11 million, said: “No, I think we don’t really want to show what kind of really good team we are. We just want to win and that’s the most important thing. It doesn’t need to be always pretty or something. We just need to win and that’s our main focus now on every game. That we just need to win and don’t need to show everybody how good we are because we showed it already a lot of times,” as reported by Daily Record.

He conitnued: “It’s now about winning every game and that’s always our mindset and it will always be our mindset every week. We prepare every game like every team. It’s not something special or something. We just need to focus on ourselves, focus on the next game and that’s what we are doing already now. We are focusing now on the next game and that’s the Rangers game. So it’s up to us now to relax a bit, recover and then just go into the new week with full energy and then we are ready for it.”

Celtic s Jota scores and celebrates his goal with Arne Engels during the Scottish Premiership match between Celtic and Aberdeen at Celtic Park, on 25th February 2025 . Picture by Mark Runnacles Celtic v Aberdeen

Arne’s manager was about as calm and collected as you could get when prompted on the game next week. Rodgers has a quiet confidence about him that immediately sets the supporters at ease whenever these games roll around. Barry Ferguson got a great result against José Mourinho in Turkey last Thursday, and should he complete the job this week, it would be quite a coup for the novice manager.

Arne Engels scores. St Mirren v Celtic, Scottish Premiership, Saturday 1st March 2025. Photo: Vagelis Georgariou (The Celtic Star)

However, where next Sunday is concerned, Ferguson could well be entering new territory which could see him and his coaching staff wind up in a world of pain. Brendan is well versed in these fixtures and has admitted that he knows what went wrong that day at Ibrox and has accounted for and tweaked in his head what his Celtic side need to do now. That should give the opposition much cause for trepidation, as if he doesn’t intend to wreak revenge, as he says, he will certainly be looking to rectify that shocking result.

Champions in waiting…

Paul Gillespie