Celtic's Virgil van Dijk claims his first season in Scotland has proved to be everything he wanted from his Parkhead switch.
The former FC Groningen defender sealed a £2.6million move to the Scottish champions last summer and has been a stand-out performer for Neil Lennon's side.
The two goals conceded against Aberdeen in Saturday's William Scottish Cup defeat were the first the Hoops had let past them since mid-December and they are now on course for a third Scottish Premiership title in a row, leading the second-placed Dons by a mammoth 21 points.
Despite that surprise cup exit, Dutchman Van Dijk says his first move abroad has gone as well as he could have planned.
The 22-year-old told the Celtic View: "It feels very good to be unbeaten in the league so far and I'm very proud of it.
"I think the whole team should be proud. It's a big team performance to do this and also a personal achievement for me too because I've never experienced this before in my life, so I'm very happy.
"It's a good partnership I have with Efe Ambrose - he's a good guy. Off and on the pitch I talk with him a lot and I learn from him and I think he can learn from me too.
"It's definitely me who is the talker, though. It's something that is natural for me, to talk a lot during the game, not only to Efe but to all the other players.
"Fraser Forster communicates well, just like any other goalkeeper but he is exceptional in his qualities. He's an unbelievably good goalkeeper. I've never trained or played with a keeper like him. He's a good guy too who is enjoyable to play with.
"You hope that when you come to a club like Celtic that you can do well. You have something in mind, you hope that it goes to plan and so far for me, winning games and breaking records means it has, so I'm happy."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article