Cameron Carter-Vickers admits he was sad to wave goodbye to his Celtic central defensive partner Carl Starfelt.
The American and the Swede formed a solid bond in the green and white of Celtic for the last two seasons. Both players shared an unbeaten domestic league record as they never lost a match whenever they were partnered together at the heart of the Parkhead defence.
The pairing ended after Starfelt clinched a £4.3 million deal to join Spanish La Liga outfit Celta Vigo. However, the 25-year-old has no qualms about being able to form one half of another defensive duo and he hopes he can establish a similar rapport with Maik Nawrocki or potential incoming Swedish defender Gustaf Lagerbielke.
He said: "I think it's always sad when you lose a teammate – especially when you’ve played so closely with them. For him (Starfelt), it was the right decision to move, and we wish him nothing but the best. I think that all defensive partnerships take a bit of time. I think that’s just the nature of the position so for me now it's all about focussing on trying to build connections with new team-mates and new players and try and build that connection as strong as possible.
"Maik's a really good player, you can see in training all the qualities that he has. Like I was saying before it's just all about how he needs time more than anything and building up connections in terms of knowing me knowing what he’s going to do and him knowing what I'm going to do, and it's building from there, really.
"Training is key, speaking to each other out on the training pitch and letting each other know where we want to be and then also in games as well. There’s nothing like a game to see how his natural tendencies are and him learning mine, and from there, you can feed off of each other.
"I think we can build a fresh partnership and understanding in defence as you can see the qualities that Maik has, and you see them every day in training. He’s a very very good player and it just takes time. All defensive connections take time and that’s just what we and the team need.
"Maik's very good on the ball, he’s a very good progressive passer on the ball. I think he reads the game really well and he knows when to step in at times and try and be aggressive and intercept the ball and things like that so yeah, he’s a good player."
With Rodgers now beginning to put his own stamp on things how does Carter-Vickers assess the current squad and their chances of repeating last season's domestic treble heroics? He returned to the starting lineup from injury last weekend during the 4-2 win over Ross County on flag day despite having not even been back in training for two weeks.
"I think we’re in a good place right now," he continued. "The season’s just started but the squad is definitely strong, and you can see in training how competitive it is and that everyone’s right up for it and everyone’s competing to play. I think there’s definitely a few tactical tweaks that the new manager has made. To be fair, I’ve only been back training with the team for about 10 days, so I'm still kind of learning and picking up the little tactical tweaks that he’s making but a lot of it is the same with regard to possession-based, high-press so it’s just trying to learn little formational tweaks and tactical tweaks that he (Rodgers) is making."
The centre-back decided to undergo a knee operation immediately after Celtic's 1-0 win over Rangers in the Scottish Cup semi-final at Hampden back in April after playing through the pain barrier for his club. This led to him missing the close season period, and being unavailable for the final six fixtures of the campaign.
Carter-Vickers opened up on his time away, as well as the challenges he has faced with injury over the last year. He said: "That’s the way I wanted to do it. I think it was before Christmas I did it (the injury), but the pain wasn’t bad consistently like it was lows and highs with how bad the pain would be, but it was just something that I needed to get sorted and now that it is I’m in a good spot.
"My understanding of the injury was that it was never going to get worse – the actual damaging in the knee – so it wasn’t too much of a risk- it was mainly just pain management. I knew the Rangers match would be my last game, so I played it. To be fair, not much really changed for me mentally. I went out there how I always do and tried to perform and help my team. It was a bit of a weird feeling after that game for me personally because I did know that would be the last game of the season, but it is what it is.
"I did enjoy the cup final, to be fair. I was there in my suit watching the game! We won, and I’m not a real overthinker or anything like that in terms of thinking 'I’m playing this game but I’m going to miss this game'.
Celtic now head to Pittodroe for their next league fixture, where they will face a sterner test against a rejuvenated Aberdeen side under. Barry Robson.
