CARL STARFELT believes Celtic are ready to topple Rangers and claim top spot in the Scottish Premiership, saying they are a very different proposition to the team defeated at Ibrox back in August.
The Swedish defender was understandably on a high following Celtic’s win over Dundee United that cut the gap to Rangers to just two points ahead of the Old Firm clash at Celtic Park on Wednesday night.
And he thinks that the Ibrox side will face a much stiffer examination against Celtic this time around than when they saw off Ange Postecoglou’s men by a goal to nil early on in the campaign.
"We're a better team now from the last Rangers game,” Starfelt said. “We've come a long way in our football. I hope we can show that on Wednesday night.
"We feel good, we are in a good run of games. We have won a lot of games and I feel the confidence is very high in the dressing room.
"I think we are ready for it. It is going to be a good game and we are going to approach it like every other game and we are going to do our best to win it.
"It's still early - we don't want to look too much at the table. Of course we really want to win the game on Wednesday but we need to be focused on every game.
"We can't think about other teams or what might happen in the future. We need to be focused and play every game as it comes, winning as many as possible.
"That's our mindset, not to get carried away. We're focused on playing our own football and at the end of the season, that's when it matters where you are in the table.”
It looked as though Celtic would fail to take advantage of Rangers’ earlier slip-up against Ross County as they struggled to break a stubborn Dundee United down, but Starfelt said the players never thought a goal wouldn’t come, and it duly did through Liel Abada in stoppage time.
"We believed in ourselves all the way,” he said.
“We didn't play our best game but we for sure created enough to win the game by a couple of goals.
“We missed some chances so it is always going to be tough but we kept calm and in the end scored a goal. It was very important.
“We kept pushing and believing in it. We had that mindset that we will not give up or think it is
too hard, we will just keep going, playing our football and try to win every game, and this time we managed to score in the end, so we are very happy.”
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