Celtic target Europa League progress despite defeats to Real Betis and Bayer Leverkusen

Celtic are targeting progression from their Europa League group despite losing their opening two matches.

Celtic's Carl Starfelt has targeted European progression. (Photo by Craig Williamson / SNS Group)

Following Saturday’s 2-0 win over Motherwell at Fir Park in the cinch Premiership, attention turns to Tuesday afternoon and a clash with Ferencvaros

Celtic host the Hungarians at the unusual time of 3.30pm due to events around the upcoming COP26 conference in Glasgow which is likely going to cause plenty of awkwardness.

Ange Postecoglou's men are targeting back-to-back wins against Ferencvaros as they look to put pressure on Real Betis and Bayer Leverkusen in pursuit of a top two position and progress to the knockout stages.

The team have the safety net of third place and dropping down to the preliminary knockout round of the Conference League, but for defender Carl Starfelt and his team-mates their ambition remains in the Europa League.

“It is a very important game, but right now every game is important," he said. “Saturday at Motherwell was equally as important.

“We are aiming to win every match and we hope, not only to finish third in the group, but to go through.

“We need good performances for that to happen. First, all our focus is on Tuesday.”

He added: “Of course, I think that [six points] is realistic. But right now it is only about Tuesday. We will try to win and take it from there.”

While Starfelt rues the defeats in the opening two games of the group, especially the loss in Seville to Real Betis, he believes the team will benefit from the experiences in the long run.

He said: “I think we should have got more points in Betis, so I think even though we face good teams, we can perform if we play well and get results.

“We want to win on Tuesday and then go through.

“In Betis, we were away to a very good side, but we still showed that we can compete and be good. Unfortunately, we didn’t win, but we showed we can score goals and dominate.

“We are also learning from these big matches, like the Betis and Leverkusen games.

“A lot of our players have not played many European games against such opposition, so every time we go out we learn something.”

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