14 hours ago
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Celtic midfielder Mika Baur is confident they are building good momentum ahead of the upcoming Old Firm double-header against Rangers.
The Parkhead side made it five wins from five at the start of the new Premiership season courtesy of a 2-1 victory away at St Mirren last night.
They will face St Johnstone in Perth on Wednesday night as they seek to extend their winning run at the start of the new campaign, before a league and cup double against Rangers.
The first instalment of the derby double-header comes in the Premier Sports Cup quarter-finals at Ibrox next weekend, before the bitter rivals clash again the following week at Celtic Park.
After coming from behind to clinch the three points in Paisley, Baur insists confidence and belief is growing within the Celtic squad.
'Of course you read a lot about the Rangers game,' said the 22-year-old German midfielder. 'But we have a game on Wednesday first against St Johnstone.
Midfielder Mika Baur says he and his Celtic team-mates are growing in confidence and belief
Celtic defender Liam Scales equalises with a header in their 2-1 victory against St Mirren
Manager Martin O'Neill and his backroom staff have made Baur feel welcome at Celtic
'We have to win that one, so my focus is on that match - then we can go for Rangers. It's an exciting period. There's nothing better than playing every three days.
'It's play-recover-play again, but I really enjoy that. It also means you need every player to play a part because there's a lot of minutes. But I look forward to the next 14 days.
'I'm still learning as this was only my third game and only my second start. Everything is still new and I'm still figuring out how everything works.
'It's high intensity, there's a lot of pressure in the duels, a lot of hard fights. But if we play our style and control it then I think we are capable of winning games. I think we are getting better.'
A £6.8million summer signing from German side Paderborn, Baur is confident he can make a success of himself in the rough and tumble of Scottish football.
Despite being relatively small in stature, he believes his attitude is perfectly suited to the more physical demands of his new environment.
Baur also paid tribute to Martin O'Neill and the coaching staff for welcoming him to the club, particularly Mark Fotheringham, who speaks German.
'I'm not the tallest,' he said. 'But why should I be shy? It's not just about playing nice football with the ball. There's so much else you need to do. You need to do the dirty work sometimes.
'I learned to do that and I like it - I've no problem with it. I've heard there's a lot of dirty work here, but I enjoy it.
'It's difficult to know what to expect when you are coming from a different country with a different style of football. But I am enjoying it.
'The manager has got so much experience. I just played in the second division in Germany and you can learn a lot from that.
'I had a very young coach - who was in his first year. It was the complete opposite to here. I really enjoy it with the manager, and with Shaun [Maloney] and Mark as well.
'It's a great staff and a great coaching team. I'm learning a lot. It's been great with Mark. Sometimes it's a mixture of English and German!
'He can be explaining something and he mixes in some German words. It's good to have someone to speak with like that. It helps a lot.'
Meanwhile, Celtic defender Cameron Carter-Vickers insists there is still plenty of improvement to come from the reigning champions.
Goals in the second half from Liam Scales and Hyun-jun Yang saw Celtic overcome a 1-0 deficit as they clinched a hard-fought three points against St Mirren.
'I don't think I've ever had an easy or simple game at St Mirren,' said Carter-Vickers.
'Pretty much whenever you go away from home you always expect it to be tough. In my six years here, I can't remember an easy one against St Mirren.
'It was tough again so it was great to get the three points. In the first half I thought we actually played fairly well, minus the handball and penalty.
'They didn't create that many chances and we created a fair few ourselves. But it was tough in the end and I was glad to win it.
'I think in general we can control games better. Most of their chances probably came after 70, 75 minutes.
'We started going a bit longer and we were giving them the ball back, the game was a bit more open and end to end, which didn't really suit us. That's definitely something we can improve.'
