Arne Engels: I love the winning mentality we have at Celtic

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Celtic F.C.

·14 May 2025

Arne Engels: I love the winning mentality we have at Celtic

Arne Engels is still in the early stages of his Celtic career, having only joined the club from FC Augsburg at the end of August last year.

Yet is has been an impressive first season for the 21-year-old midfielder, who made his 50th appearance for the Hoops in last weekend’s 3-1 victory over Hibernian.

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He has also picked up two winner’s medals – the League Cup back in December and the Premiership title, with the league medal set to be presented on Trophy Day this weekend.

And the Belgian internationalist is also targeting a third medal, and a first treble, when Celtic take on Aberdeen at Hampden on May 24.

For Engels, the way the campaign has unfolded is vindication of his decision to move to the Scottish Champions.

Speaking at Lennoxtown today ahead of the midweek trip to take on Aberdeen at Pittodrie, the midfielder said: “I’ve loved it and the club have been amazing to me.

“I helped the team where I needed to help and every single team-mate helped me to perform really well.

'So I’m really glad that I’m here and that I’ve had this really good season already, and I hope to finish it strongly.'

"We need to keep on going, keeping on performing like we are always doing. That’s always our aim, to look at the next game.

"That’s what we’ve always done and that’s helped us through the season to perform every game. We don’t need to change that and we keep on doing the same things like we always do.

“The manager is driving us, but we are also driving ourselves. That’s a good thing here, everybody wants to win and do really good every game and I hope that we’ll do that tomorrow.

'It’s going to be a really difficult game and opponent, so it’s up to us to show ourselves again and be a good Celtic team.'

“You have to treat it as another game, but of course you know that you’ll play them again in a week-and-a-half.

"But we are now focused on this game and we want to show every time our qualities, how good we are and try to win every game – that’s also our aim for tomorrow.”

Engels also appreciates that he’s learning from team-mates like Callum McGregor and James Forrest in developing the winning mentality that is a pre-requisite for every successful Celtic player.

While the Celtic captain has now won his 24 major honour with the club, Forrest’s 26th medal as league champion again this season means he is now Celtic’s most decorated player of all-time.

“If you look at Jamesy and how many trophies he has, he still wants to win another one,” said Engels.

'The winning feeling is addictive to us, and we really want to have that in the end.'

"That’s a good thing here, that everybody wants to win and win trophies. That’s also something different and new to me and I really like it.

“Even if you pick up things that you don’t add directly to your game, you still need to work on it and you see a lot of things, even in how they (Forrest and McGregor) are behaving.

“Going in to the cup final, how they prepare themselves mentally and physically, you always pick up things.

“And, of course, you have the football side of it, to perform really well and to see their qualities and see how they deal with things, that really helps me a lot and I also want to improve that in my game.

“That was also a reason why I wanted to come here, because there was an expectation to win here.

"Also to play for trophies, to play for the league, that’s something different and I really wanted to experience that because that’s a totally different mentality than in other teams.

“I wanted to add that to my bag, to show that and to have that, so it was really a reason to come here.”