SCOTT Brown knows Celtic must maintain their recent high standards if they are to secure a win over Hibernian in this evening's League Cup semi-final and added the hunger for silverware with the squad is as high as it has ever been.

Celtic come into today's semi-final at Hampden in form and the weight of expectation to continue the defence of the trophy they have won for the last three consecutive years has only increased.

Brown said that pressure was integral to playing for the club and insisted Celtic were focusing only on maintaining their high standards rather than their recent successes.

“There’s that expectation level as soon as you come to Celtic,” he said. “You come to win trophies and to win every game. Everyone demands that and it's a standard that we set ourselves every day, whether it's on training or in games. We set those standards extremely high and we need to make sure we maintain those levels.

“The manager speaks positively all the time and it’s about how we’re going to shape up. We’ll work on the team and work on the style and how they're going to play as well. We’ll work on the best way to play it out from the back or if we’re going to go a little bit more direct.

“It’s about focusing on the next game ahead of us. It was a great performance on Wednesday for us and a great win as well. That's gone and so are the past results and we need to make sure that we focus on Hibs.”

Celtic’s Treble Treble run has starved the rest of the country of silverware, and Brown acknowledged the desire from Celtic’s opponents to defeat the champions. But, the Hoops captain said the winning mentality instilled in the team will be important going forward.

“I think everyone wants their hands on that trophy,” he said. “We need to make sure we get past Hibs.

“It's huge for us. We want to try and win every trophy that we go into and we believe we can win every game. We need to make sure that we’re on our A game come Saturday.

“We've got that winning mentality and we’ve always got that belief in each other as well. It's about going to Hampden and putting on a performance for our fans.”

Brown came off during Celtic’s 2-0 win over St Mirren on Wednesday with an injury concern and gave an update on his ability to feature in the semi-final.

"I’m okay,” said Brown. “I came off as a precaution. I’m at that stage where I know my body and I know when I need to come off. It was around 65 or 70 minutes and luckily enough we were two up, so we made that sub before something bad ended up happening.

“I managed to train on Thursday, we did a cool down, went to the physios and everything is good.”

Captain: Our winning mentality will be key in Hibs semi-final