Arne Engels warned Rangers that Celtic are intent on gaining revenge for the back-to-back Derby defeats they suffered earlier this year.
Brendan Rodgers’ side visit their Glasgow rivals on Sunday in their first match since tying up a fourth consecutive Premiership title with a 5-0 win at Dundee United on Saturday.
The Hoops will be driven to reassert their authority in the Old Firm fixture after losing 3-0 on their last trip to Ibrox in January and then going down 3-2 in the Celtic Park rematch in March.
PFA Scotland SPFL Young Player of the Year, with @ArnoldClark.
Arne Engels – @CelticFCHamza Igamane – @RangersFC James Wilson – @JamTarts Lennon Miller – @MotherwellFC #PFAScotland #PFASAwards25 pic.twitter.com/M588c71mms
— PFA Scotland (@PFAScotland) April 28, 2025
“We want to win every game, it’s not only the Rangers game that we want to win, otherwise, you cannot be champions,” said midfielder Engels after he was nominated for the PFA Scotland Young Player of the Year award.
“Of course, it’s a big game and it is big also for us because we lost the last two. Everybody was really disappointed about those two games so it’s up to us to now take revenge.”
Engels became Celtic’s record signing when he joined from Augsburg for a reported fee of £11million last summer. The 21-year-old Belgian is delighted to have marked his first season in Glasgow with a first title of his career.
“It’s an amazing feeling,” he said. “It’s my first and I cannot wait to get other ones. It’s like a bit of a drug that you want to achieve so much and win so much. It’s an amazing feeling.
“I’m here to try and win everything. That’s also a different mindset than I had maybe in Augsburg. It wasn’t really about winning everything, but not really losing. Here it’s totally different. You’re expected to win and that’s a nice feeling for me because I had also that mindset already.
“It was easy for me to come in here and get on track with the boys and do the same things that they also did already last year.”
Engels said it was “a really nice feeling” to be nominated for the young player of the year award alongside Motherwell midfielder Lennon Miller, Rangers forward Hamza Igamane and Hearts striker James Wilson.
While the Belgium international would be honoured to win a prize at the awards dinner to be held in Glasgow after the derby this Sunday, his main priority between now and the end of the season is to help Celtic seal a domestic treble by beating Aberdeen in the Scottish Gas Scottish Cup final next month.
“I’m trying to improve every day so it would be an amazing feeling to get a reward for it, everybody wants that,” said Engels. “But that’s not the main goal. The main goal is all the trophies.
“There’s still one to play for and still a few more games in the league that we want to end really strong.”
