Celtic travel to Pittodrie this weekend to take on an Aberdeen side who last week fought out a 0-0 draw away at Livingston to kick off their campaign.

They are back on their own turf, of course, but face a Hoops side who recorded four wins with 12 goals scored and none against last term in games between the sides.

These are stats to be proud of at both ends of the pitch, and a key ingredient in losing the least amount of goals last season was the partnership built between the defensive pairing of Cameron Carter-Vickers and Carl Starfelt.

At Lennoxtown today, (Friday) the American internationalist spoke about his Swedish former team-mate who left for pastures new this week, joining La Liga side, RC Celta.

Carter-Vickers said: “I think it’s always sad when you lose a team-mate, especially one that you played so closely with, but for him it was the right move and we wish him nothing but the best.”

A new embryonic partnership, though, is now being formed with recent addition, Maik Nawrocki who arrived from Poland as one of the summer signings this pre-season, and the pair teamed up in last weekend’s opening day win over Ross County.

The centre-half added: “He’s a really good player, you can see in training the qualities that he has. It just needs time more than anything and it’s just about building up connections and me knowing what he’s going to do and him knowing what I’m going to do, and it’s building from there really.

“All defensive partnerships take a bit of time, that’s just the nature of the position, so for me now it’s just about focusing on trying to build connections with new team-mates, and new players and trying to build that connection as strongly as possible.

“It’s a bit of everything. Training is key and speaking to each other out on the training pitch and letting each other know where we want each other to be, and also games as well.

'There’s nothing like a game just to see his natural tendencies and him learning mine. From there you can feed off each other.’

“You can see the qualities that Maik has every day in training. He’s a very, very good player and it’s just time. All defensive connections take time and that’s just what me and the team need.

“He’s very good on the ball, a good passer, a very good progressive passer of the ball. I think he reads the game really well and he just knows when to step in at times and trying to be aggressive in intercepting the ball.”

Cameron Carter-Vickers relishing new defensive partnership