STAND-IN skipper Mikael Lustig has vowed to lead Celtic to the League Cup Final - then gladly hand the armband back to Scott Brown.

The Swedish defender has been a standout as officer material after Brown was ruled out for three months with injury.

But he is desperate to be a Hampden hero when Celtic take on Ross County in Sunday's semi-final.

And fired-up Lustig hopes the match will be a springboard to a Treble and his first League Cup winner's medal - the only gong missing from his Scottish collection.

He said: "I haven't won it yet and it's a massive game for us.

"We want to win as many titles as possible and when it's a cup game you can't afford to play a bad game.

"We have won our last couple of games at Hampden so hopefully we can continue that.

"Ross County are a hard team who work really hard and are hard to beat and have been doing well in the league, so it will be a difficult game for us."

Lustig joined Celtic four years ago this month.

And he has relished the chance over the past month or so to be Brown's back up after Charlie Mulgrew was also crocked.

But he is looking forward to relinquishing the skipper role when Brown returns.

Especially since has run out of motivational speeches during the Hoops pre-match huddle.

He said: "It's an honour to be captain, but it doesn't matter if you are captain or not.

"I'm one of the oldest guys in the team now and have been around the game for a while, so it's natural for me to try and be a leader.

"I'm quite vocal. I try to help my team-mates as much as possible. Sometimes it's harder if you have a bad start to the game and you need to focus on your own game before you start to coach the other guys but I'm quite loud.

"It just getting harder and harder for every game to say something different (in the huddle) - so hopefully Broony is back soon."

Lustig praised Celtic's recent return to goalscoring form - they have bagged 18 goals in their last four games.

And he admitted that Celtic's early exit from European competition had provided a vital spark on the domestic front.

"A lot of the focus is on Europe in the first half of the season, the player told the Celtic View. "We wanted to reach the Champions League and then progress from the Europea League.

"Now we can just focus on the domestic football so maybe it's down to that.

"We struggled a bit before the end of last year and in the first game in January against Partick Thistle we didn't play well.

"But after that game we have played good football and scored a lot of goals and we are feeling confident in the defence which is good."

Goalscoring talisman Leigh Griffiths has been in the form of his life and Lustig has watched as the Hoops frontman has broken the 50-goal barrier in record time.

"He's a wonderful goalscorer with a great left foot who loves to shoot.

"You just give him the ball and you know he's always dangerous.

"Sometimes you wish he would pass to you but can't argue when he scores three goals."

As he celebrates four years at Parkhead, the right-back said he couldn't believe the speed of his Celtic rollercoaster.

He said: "It's gone really quickly. There have been ups and downs. The Champions League was unbelievable, especially the first one when we played really well, got a lot of points and made the last 16.

"But there have been a lot of injuries and they have been the low points.

"The biggest challenge here is the pressure. There aren't a lot of teams in Europe where it feels like a crisis if you take one point from two games, even if you are top of the league.

"You can never be satisfied, and if you don't win the next game it's going to hurt.

"But I am really happy here and hopefully the fans will think of me as a decent and reliable player who always gave 100 per cent and won games for Celtic."