VIRGIL van Dijk is desperate for Celtic to maintain their unbeaten SPFL Premiership record when St Johnstone are the visitors to Parkhead on Sunday.

Neil Lennon's side's bid for a second successive league and Scottish Cup double ended when Aberdeen came to Glasgow and left with a 2-1 fifth-round victory last Saturday.

Having already had two tight contests against the Perth Saints this season - both of which the Hoops won by a one-goal margin - van Dijk is expecting another tough game.

"We want to continue playing as well as possible and win the league for our supporters and we must play well throughout the campaign to do that," he told the Celtic View.

"It feels very good to be unbeaten in the league so far and I'm very proud of it. I think the whole team should be proud. It's a big team performance to do this and also a personal achievement for me too because I've never experienced this before in my life so I'm very happy.

"You hope that when you come to a club like Celtic that you can do well. You have something in mind, you hope that it goes to plan and so far for me, winning games and breaking records means it has, so I'm happy."

And while van Dijk's main priority is in trying to prevent the opposition from scoring, he's already proved himself adept at the other end of the pitch, contributing a few spectacular goals, including a wonderful solo effort against St Johnstone at McDiarmid Park and a superb free-kick against Hibernian at Easter Road.

"I've been practicing in training and in pre-season where I had the chance to practice quite a bit on my free-kicks," the Dutchman said.

"I wasn't that confident about hitting them initially but against Hibs I was confident and I knew I could do it, everybody saw I was confident. Hopefully there are more free-kicks to come.

"I'm not saying I'll be taking the ball off Charlie Mulgrew or Kris Commons, but in the future I'm hoping to take a few more. I think in the game if you feel confident that you can hit the target then you should be able to take it."