Arne Engels targets Celtic improvement after 'incredible' Champions League night

Arne Engels said his first night of European football with Celtic was “incredible” and believes the team can get better and better.

The Parkhead side kicked off their Champions League campaign with a 5-1 demolition of Slovan Bratislava.

Engels scored from the penalty spot and Liam Scales, Kyogo Furuhashi, Daizen Maeda and Adam Idah were all on the scoresheet in the comprehensive win.

For the Belgian midfielder, who joined in the summer from Augsburg for a club record fee, the occasion more than lived up to its billing.

“It was actually incredible,” he said. “So the noise before the game was, was mental.

“It’s been amazing and also the crowd was amazing today. The team was amazing.

“It did more (than meet expectations). The song in the beginning from the Champions League and the crowd was unbelievable.

“I’ve never experienced anything like it. It really helped us.”

Celtic have had a flawless start to domestic competition and have now added an impressive European win to their run this season but Engels says the team has to keep pushing to become better ahead of the next challenges.

“It’s now up to us to just keep on going, keep on working, and don’t get sloppy or something,” he said.

“We just need to focus on ourselves, and that’s what we are doing.

“I think it will only improve. So, we are in a good way.

“We still need to keep on working, and we are also improving every game. So we also will be better and better.

“We still need to work on some details, and I think we will do that in the next days and weeks. And we are still going to be improving every day.”

Engels scored his first goal for the club on Saturday against Hearts from the spot and was clinical from the spot again on Wednesday. He put his calm penalty technique down to confidence in his own ability but also believes his all-round game will get better as he settled in with his new team and gets to know the rest of the squad.

“There’s a lot more to come,” he said. “I’ve still only been here for one and a half weeks, so I still need a lot of relationship with the guys.

“And also, I still need to keep on going and working and training, on every detail and seeing some images also from the game.

“That’s what will also improve my game. So, I hope it will only get better.”