JOTA, the Celtic winger who was yesterday named the cinch Premiership Player of the Month for October, has targeted victory in every competition this season.

The Benfica loanee helped the Glasgow club win four of the five matches they played in the league last month and move to within four points of leaders Rangers.

The Portuguese was named Man of the Match after the Premier Sports Cup semi-final triumph over holders St Johnstone at Hampden on Saturday evening.

That result has set up a final encounter with Hibernian, who beat Rangers 3-1 on Sunday, and kept alive the Glasgow club’s hopes of completing a treble in the 2021/22 campaign.

Jota is concentrating fully on the Europa League group match against Bayer Leverkusen at the BayArena in Germany on Thursday evening.

However, the 22-year-old confessed he would love to lift silverware in this country and stressed that he and his team mates will be going all out to win every match they are involved in.

“Of course, I would love to win everything,” he said. “But it’s too soon to think about it. We don’t have a final in our next game. We have a Europa League game. We will focus on that.

“To play for Celtic you must be hungry. That’s what we are looking for. We want to win every game, every competition, game by game. We will stick to our process, which is what we are doing.

“I am definitely very happy with how things are going in this first stage of the season. Now I want to keep on going and do the best that I can and learn as much as I can.

“Is there more to come from me? Yes, for sure. I don’t want to stop here. My aim and my goals are very high. I want to work a lot to help the team and to achieve my objectives.”

Celtic have the option to buy Jota in the summer if they pay Benfica £6.5m and supporters are keen for them to keep the skilful forward in Glasgow. However, the player is unconcerned about his personal situation. 

“I think right now I am enjoying my football,” he said. “Let me enjoy my football because it’s been great and whatever has to happen will happen in the right time.

“Right now, I just want to play and learn as much as I can from my teammates and my coach and be happy.”

Beating St Johnstone and reaching the Premier Sports Cup final has been described as an important achievement for Celtic under their new manager Ange Postecoglou.

The Parkhead club are rebuilding after finishing last season trophyless and failing to make Scottish football history by winning the Premiership and completing 10-In-A-Row.

But Jota said: “Celtic never left, my friend. We are always here. Of course sometimes there are more difficult periods and teams go through some changes, but I think our team is solid and we are doing good things.

“We believe in us, which is the most important thing, and I know many people are starting to believe in us as well. So just let us do our thing and we will see.

“It was good that we won the game because we knew it was a huge loss for Celtic and we wanted to give a last dance for Bertie Auld. I think we did him proud. Now we just have to keep going.

“Yes, but first we have some more important games because the next game is always the most important one. We are going to think about those first and then when it comes the time we will think about the final.”

Celtic can boost their hopes of reaching the Europa League knockout rounds on Thursday by getting a result against Bundesliga rivals Leverkusen - and Jota is optimistic they can do so after their performances against Real Betis and Ferencvaros away.

“We are going to approach the game with the maximum tranquility, knowing what we need to do,” he said. “We are going to see what are the strengths of Leverkusen and the lower points and keep on doing our thing, sticking to our process and our ideas and do our football.

“To score goals you need to attack so we are not going there to defend. We need to attack. It’s a difficult game because they are very good, with very good attacking players, so we will need to defend.

“The Europa League games are like that, you have to defend well and attack well otherwise you won’t win the match.

“You need to win every game. Playing for Celtic that is a must. We don’t go out to draw or to lose. That’s just not in our perspective. We will fight for the victory in every single game.

“Can we take heart from the first game when we scored three goals away against Betis? Yes, we will fight for the result, we will work for the result. That is what we are looking to do.”