STANDING still is not an option for Celtic. Success last season, according to the mantra of Ange Postecoglou, is no guarantee of success in the next, and the message at their pre-season training camp here in Austria is that what they did last term is a base, rather than a benchmark.
There will be those who will contend that the big-money signings of Cameron Carter-Vickers and Jota has ensured that the Celtic squad has to this point, done little more than tread water, and maintained its strength from the previous campaign.
But as well as adding Alexandro Bernabei and Ben Siegrist, there is a case to be made that by securing key players like Carter-Vickers and Jota – who at 24 and 23 years of age still have plenty of improvement in them – that Celtic have actually laid down a huge marker ahead of the new season already.
Certainly, that is the feeling of Carter-Vickers himself, who believes that under Postecoglou’s tutelage, both he and this Celtic team are only going to get better and better.
When asked if converting last season’s loan signings to long-term contracts signalled a statement of intent by the club, Carter-Vickers said: “Yeah, you could say that. It would be good to keep as many players in the squad as we can. We did fairly well last year and we want to build on that this year.
“I think [Ange] is a great manager. He’s really calm, he’s got a set way of playing that I think all the players enjoy. He’s also pulled the group closer together. All the boys get on really well and that’s a good thing.
“I think the manager here always wants to improve. He’s never happy. He always thinks there is another level we can get to and that’s what we’re trying to do as a group this season.
“He has that presence about him. He’s a calm guy, he rarely raises his voice, but he definitely has that presence. When he says things, everybody listens, and all the players trust him. We have trust in what he says and we follow what he says.”
The Celtic players had their first training session at the rather rainy Sportarena des SV Bad Erlach yesterday, a small regional stadium where they will also take on Regionalliga Ost side Wiener Viktoria this evening in their maiden friendly of pre-season.
There are youngsters here within a 35-man squad who will of course be given a chance to impress, but the strength of side Celtic could conceivably put out is striking given how early in the summer it still is.
Carter-Vickers thinks that settled look about the changing room could be a critical factor in Celtic raising the bar once more, allowing them to get down to some proper work straight away, rather than having to wait for a host of bodies to drift through the door as they did last summer.
“I think so,” he said. “Pre-season will be important to us, let us get back to how we were playing last year.
“And we’ll try and build on that. We’ll try to improve every day.”
One thing that has definitely improved over the past few weeks is the chance of Carter-Vickers making it into the USA’s World Cup squad, with the defender getting two starts against Grenada and El Salvador in his national side’s last two matches.
Champions League football with Celtic, he believes, will only aid that cause, and he is hoping that if he excels in the opening months of the season then he may very well be included in Gregg Berhalter’s Qatar ‘roster’, as the Americans may say.
“One hundred percent,” he said. “Every player wants to be part of a World Cup.
“That’s got to be my aim, to keep working hard and keep working to be part of the squad.”
If he does make it, he has a chance of coming up against England, the country of his birth. He qualifies to play for the USA through his father, former NBA player Howard Carter.
That may be the cause of some friendly friction with the English side of his family, but it would also be an opportunity to test himself against a famous former teammate at Tottenham.
“Oh yeah, that will be a good game,” he said.
“I’ve not really had too much banter from that side of the family about it yet. It would be a chance to play against Harry Kane.
“With international football, I’ve just got to focus on doing well at Celtic and building upon what we did last year. Hopefully the stuff on top will then come.
“I never really think that far ahead. For me, it’s just about the next step. And the next step for me is just about trying to improve my football and trying to improve my performances for Celtic.”
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