NATALIE Ross has brought a wealth of experience to the Hoops side having played in the English Super League with Arsenal and accumulated 14 caps for Scotland.

Ross returned to Celtic for her second spell in 2016, four years after making the move down south, and has been a key component in the team’s continuing improvements while also picking up the 2018 Player of the Year award.

A former Hibernian player, Ross knows what it takes to beat Glasgow City and the midfielder utilised that knowledge when she scored the opener in the recent victory over the league winners. The 4-1 win represents a significant turning point in the league and Ross is eagerly awaiting next season when she believes Celtic will make more history.

How did the win against Glasgow City finally come to fruition?
It was a great result. We went into the game quite confident and that was significant because sometimes players can go into the games against City quite intimidated. But we we’re confident and the training in the build-up to the game had been great. We played very well and, while people might say Glasgow City were tired after their midweek game, 4-1 is a very strong result and we felt we did really well. Over the last couple of seasons we’ve felt we’ve been getting closer to City and in some of the games it could have gone either way, but they’ve ended up nicking them. It was different in this game, the times have changed. We felt strong from the off and there was no point during the game where I felt they would go ahead. I was confident that we were going to win, especially when we scored two.

How did the game unfold?
I scored the first goal, Sarah Ewens got two and Josephine Giard got one. Keeva Keenan was out on the right and played the ball into the centre of midfield. I managed to turn and played the ball up to Kathleen McGovern. She laid it off to Sarah, I made an overlapping run on the left and Sarah played me in with a great pass. We got the opening goal about 17 minutes in so it was a good time to score. Once we got that goal the confidence grew and Sara scored very quickly after me which helped us settle. It was a great feeling to score, especially with it coming against City. To get that first goal settled everyone’s nerves was amazing and I could feel all the emotions running through me after scoring. When we got the second goal it was unbelievable and to be two goals up at half-time was unbelievable.

At what point did you feel that you were going to come away with the win?
When we came in at half-time two up we didn’t feel surprised or get over excited because we knew we deserved to be in front with the way we had been playing. We were expecting City to come out strong in the second half, which they did and they got their goal. In past seasons our heads would have probably dropped at that point but we didn’t let that happen this time and we went on to score another two goals. I think we grew throughout the game and that shows in the scoreline with us winning 4-1.

Where does this result rank in the context of the season?
It’s huge, it’s definitely up there and it’s been a long time coming. I played for Hibs many years ago when they were the top team in Scotland and beating Glasgow City regularly. It brought back feelings from then. You always want to beat the top team in Scotland to be at the top. Doing that this is amazing as was beating Hibs 3-0 quite comfortably. Those two games are the highlights of the season and we played very well in both games, they weren’t flukes and we really deserved to win.

For the full interview with Natalie Ross and a FREE GIANT Lazio celebration poster, see this week’s Celtic View, out now.

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Natalie Ross in this week’s View ahead of this season’s finale