Carl Starfelt, the Celtic defender, believes the Parkhead side are capable of igniting their Europa League campaign with six points from their double header against Ferencvaros.

Ange Postecoglou’s side are without a point from their opening two games in Group G following defeats to Real Betis and Bayer Leverkusen but host the Hungarian champions tomorrow night.

A win against Ferencavaros, who are also still without a point, would give Celtic the chance to inject life into their campaign and give them the opportunity to capitalise on any dropped points in the other game. 

“Of course, I think that is realistic,” said the Swede when asked about maximum points from the double header. “But right now it is only about Tuesday. We will try to win and take it from there. It is a very important game, but right now every game is important. Saturday at Motherwell was equally as important. 

“We are aiming to win every match and we hope, not only to finish third in the group, but to go through. We need good performances for that to happen. First, all our focus is on Tuesday. 

“I think we should have got more points in Betis, so I think even though we face good teams, we can perform if we play well and get results. 

“We want to win on Tuesday and then go through. 

“In Betis, we were away to a very good side, but we still showed that we can compete and be good. Unfortunately, we didn’t win, but we showed we can score goals and dominate. 

“We are also learning from these big matches, like the Betis and Leverkusen games. 

“A lot of our players have not played many European games against such opposition, so every time we go out we learn something.”

Celtic go into the Europa League game on the back of their second successive away league win following a fairly comfortable 2-0 win over Motherwell on Saturday.

As satisfying as the result for Postecoglou would have been the clean sheet – Celtic’s first in the league since a 3-0 win over Ross County back in September.

Christopher Jullien is back in training but isn’t expected to be anywhere near first-team selection until next month with Starfelt confident that the partnership between himself and Cameron Carter-Vickers can solidify as they develop a partnership.

In truth, there is a feeling that it is a pairing that when tested robustly will show its frailties with both still uneasy under pressure at moments in games.

“I think we will continue to grow,” said Starfelt. Of course, it is one clean sheet and we should not fly away with that.  We need to keep working hard and we have stuff that we need to keep working on. 

“But I feel we are getting more and more comfortable with each other and also just the way we are playing.  I don’t think we have reached our maximum performance yet, but we are playing better and better and that is an important thing. 

“The more you play alongside someone, the more you begin to understand each other.  But it’s not just about two players, it’s about the whole team and I think we have so many games that you have to change players. 

“It’s about having a strong core on the pitch. When you have that, you can change players here and there and it will still be stable. 

“I feel we are taking a step in the right direction. We had some injuries and some guys coming in late like myself, but now I feel we have most of our players back and some more who are really experienced are also coming back.”