Cameron Carter-Vickers: Celtic Park performances could take team to Champions League knock-outs

Cameron Carter-Vickers believes two big nights at Celtic Park could be enough to take the team into the Champions League knock-out stages.

The Scottish champions defeated RB Leipzig 3-1 on Tuesday in front of a full house at home, with their impressive performance leaving them on seven points from their first four games in the new-look League Phase.

Celtic now have a home match against Club Brugge on November 27 and a trip to Zagreb to face Dinamo on December 10 before facing Young Boys at home and then Aston Villa in Birmingham in January.

Carter-Vickers believes the results so far have the team in a good place as they aim to progress in the competition, and that the matches in front of their own support are key games now.

“I’m not sure how many points you’ll need to make the cut but we’re doing pretty well so far,” he said.

“We’ve got two more games here, which hopefully we can get positive results from, and hopefully that will be enough for us.

“As players we’re excited but it’s not done yet. We’ve still got more games left in this group stage and we want to maximise our points from it.

“Tonight we showed the levels we can reach performance-wise and if we can continue to reach them then I think we’ll be all right.

“If we play like that then we can be very dangerous but for us it’s about maintaining that level and staying concentrated.”

The core of Tuesday’s team played in the competition under Ange Postecoglou and then again last season after Brendan Rodgers returned to the club. Carter-Vickers thinks there’s been steady development as players have adjusted to the elite competition but they are now able to show what they can do.

“It’s our third year now in the Champions League and it’s been a process,” he said.

“Throughout that time we’ve grown in belief and in confidence that we can perform at this level.

“The opening game here was really good, then obviously we had the setback in Dortmund but the game away at Atalanta showed that if we have to then we can dig in and can get through tough moments in games.

“I thought today was kind of a combination of the Bratislava game and the Atalanta game. Just a top performance.”