League Cup holders Celtic aiming for continued success in pursuit of trophies

Celtic are looking to retain their League Cup crown and hope that it will again be used as a springboard to further success for the club.

They continue their defence of the trophy against Motherwell at Fir Park on Wednesday with a Hampden semi-final on the line for the winners.

Ange Postecoglou is aiming to add more silverware to the Parkhead trophy cabinet this season after winning the Premiership and League Cup double in his first year in charge of the Hoops.

And he insists that’s what comes with being manager of Celtic, who have won the tournament in five of the last six years.

He said: “It’s just the nature of this football club that, irrespective of your recent history in any competition, particularly domestically, you have to be successful again.

“It doesn’t matter if we won it last year. We know playing for this club means you challenge for every competition.

“It helped us in terms of our progress as a team because the start of the year was very challenging and doing well in the cup and winning it accelerated some of our progress and belief in what we were doing.

“In terms of this year, we’re expected to challenge and that’s what we will be doing.

“Our form has been consistent and when we play well home or away, we know we’re hard to stop, and that’s our aim on Wednesday.

“Sometimes for clubs, the league has a lot of pressure because you’re always fighting for something and cups give you the chance to free yourself up a little bit, which gives teams a bit more licence to be aggressive in their approach.

“It shouldn’t affect us or our players because our approach is the same all the time but for the opposition, a one-off game can lift their levels because they know they can progress into the next round and I’m looking forward to it.”

Kilmarnock beat Dundee United on Tuesday to become the first team in this year’s semi-finals with Aberdeen hosting Dundee and Aberdeen taking on Partick Thistle in the other quarterfinals being played on Wednesday.