ANTHONY Ralston has insisted that “Angeball” is still working despite Celtic’s disappointing run of form and predicted that results were set to improve as the Parkhead club started their preparations for the Europa League match against Bayer Leverkusen on Thursday.

The right back and his team mates were held to a 1-1 draw at home by Dundee United for the first time in eight years yesterday and now trail their city rivals Rangers by six points in the cinch Premiership table.  

Ange Postecoglou’s men have won just two of their last seven matches – and face a Leverkusen side that moved into second spot in the Bundesliga on Saturday with a 1-0 triumph over Mainz at the BayArena.

However, Ralston feels that Celtic paid the price for failing to take their chances up front – Albian Ajeti missed a sitter and David Turnbull, Tom Rogic and Jota all hit the crossbar - and is optmistic their manager's attacking game plan will produce wins soon.

“The style of football we’re playing is working,” he said. “We’re all believing in the style of play the gaffer wants us to play. The performances are there. I think in the final third we are creating chances. The results will come with that.

“We’re disappointed we’ve not got the win on Sunday. It’s a game of football and we want to win every game. That’s our aim. I feel we just need to get back into the training ground and get on with our work.

“We know it’s going to be a tough game (against Leverkusen), but we’ll go into training this week and we’ll work together and hopefully put in a good performance and get the result.”

Postecoglou is missing a raft of first team players at the moment – James Forrest, Kyogo Furuhashi, Callum McGregor and Greg Taylor are all out injured.

But Ralston denied the absentees were responsible for the draw with United and stressed that Celtic, who spent £20m on new players in the summer, have the a strong enough squad to deal with key men picking up knocks.  

“We’ve been a bit unfortunate with the injuries,” he said. “But we’ve got a quality group and depth also with the players able to come in and help the team.

“We’re a collective, we all know each other’s qualities. We’re reasonably new, with players coming in. But we’re coming well together as a group.

“We’re in it together, no matter what the result is we stay positive as a group. We’ll be going into the training ground and putting the work in for a big game on Thursday.”