Carter- Vickers warns Celtic not to mind the gap this early in season
After turnaround last year, USA defender will not be complacent
THE top of the Premiership table may well have turned in Celtic’s favour since a year ago, but their success in overturning the deficit they faced at that time to Rangers is now acting as a cautionary tale for the champions.
Ange Postecoglou’s hastily assembled outfit trailed their city rivals by six points in the early months of the last campaign, but now find themselves seven points clear at the top of the standings as their own consistent form has allowed them to take advantage of the relative recent struggles of Rangers.
For Cameron CarterVickers though, even such a substantial gap between the sides counts for very little at this stage of the season, and the defender is adamant that their lead will not affect the Celtic players’ mentality of focusing on each individual game in the slightest.
“That’s how we have done it since the manager has been here,” Carter- Vickers said.
“We have just taken a game at a time and focused only on our performance.
“Obviously, there is a bit of a gap there now, but at one point last season, we were six points behind and we managed to come back and win it.
“So we definitely know it is still early on in the season and we have to keep churning out results if we want to end up at the top.
“It’s just about not looking too far ahead and taking it game by game and wanting to win the next game and the next and the next. That’s how we look at it as a group.”
Celtic’s consistency of performance and outcome – they have won 12 of their 13 Premiership matches, with a solitary loss at St Mirren – has been achieved despite an inconsistency of selection at the heart of their defence.
Whereas Carter- Vickers and Carl Starfelt soon forged a successful partnership last season that carried Celtic through much of the campaign, injuries have meant that new arrival Moritz Jenz in particular and Stephen Welsh have been drafted in this season more regularly than manager Postecoglou would have envisaged.
In an ideal world, CarterVickers would perhaps prefer a more settled look to the Celtic back line, but the strength in depth is such that he has not been fazed by the chopping and changing going on around him. “I have enjoyed it,” he said. “All of the centre- back players are all good and it’s been good to play alongside a number of people and build relationships on and off the pitch. That is something I have enjoyed.
“The more you play alongside someone, the more you get used to what they like to do, the positions they might like to take up defensively. From there, then you work off each other. That’s how a good partnership is built.
“I don’t change my game massively, just little tweaks and that is normal and natural when you are playing alongside someone a few times and you know what they are going to do.
“I think we are in a good place. Everyone is happy, we are performing fairly well and picking up results, so it is good.
“I’m feeling good. We’ve been playing a lot of games and it is difficult for everyone to recover fully, but I feel good.
“It is quite constant [ the schedule]. You sort of finish one game and you are already thinking about the next one.
“But we have a group that is quite used to that. It was like that for large parts of last season also and we are used to it by now.”
The American defender is hoping that his own impressive form for Celtic since arriving last summer will result in a call- up to represent his country at the World Cup in Qatar this month, with USA manager Gregg Berhalter due to announce his squad today.
“Obviously, I’ll find out then and I am hoping that I will be in the squad,” he said. “Every player wants to go to a World Cup, so it’s definitely something I’m hoping I’ll be in.
“I try not to think about it too much. Obviously, if you are performing for your club side and winning games there, it puts you in with a chance of being called up and that is all that you can really do.
“Celtic is a massive club and playing games in the Champions League, that helps.
“For me, it’s just about being as successful as I can with performances at my club and then, hopefully, that is enough to get called up.
“Me as a person, I’m quite chilled. What will be, will be. At the end of the day, it is the USA manager who makes the decision and all I can do is focus on what I can affect and that is my football here.
“It’d be a dream come true, if you wanted to use that phrase. You grow as a kid watching World Cups, so to be part of one would definitely be a special moment.”