Murdo MacLeod: Super Scotty Sinclair, summer options, and a cup final

The end of the season is fast approaching, but there’s still plenty to play for as far as Celtic are concerned.

They could yet end the season unbeaten, they could set a stunning 106-points, and they’re still bidding for a treble.

It’s been an incredible year, with so many standout players. It’s hard to call just one star for Celtic, but I’m going with Scott Sinclair and I’ll tell you why.

Star Man

I think from day one since he arrived, he’s been excellent.

He scored the winning goal at Hearts at Tynecastle and he’s brought a great level of quality and set a great standard all season.

When Moussa Dembele has been at his best, Sinclair has been helping him achieve that every time. Even when he hasn’t been scoring goals in games, he’s been bringing top quality to the squad.

He’s wide on the left, but he’s always coming in off the flank and causing teams so many problems.

He creates goals, he scores goals, and he takes your team from the half-way line to the 18-yard box in next to no time. Those are fantastic assets to have.

And he’s been through a tricky few years in England too, so it’s great to see him thriving and he must be loving his football right now, it certainly looks like he is!

What next for Rodgers?

The main aim for Brendan will surely be becoming consistent in reaching the Champions League knockout stages.

And winning a treble this season would be the perfect way to go about trying to do that.

Hopefully this summer he can bring in a few players, and I think he will make three or four very decent signings.

But he needs experience. And by that I don’t mean a 30-year-old or 31-year-old, I’m talking about a 24-year-old or 25-year-old who has 150, maybe 200 first-team games under their belt.

Scott Sinclair is the perfect example, and there are bound to be players in England who will have seen what Scott has achieved this year.

He’s played in the Champions League, he’s got 60,000 fans chanting his name week in, week out. There’s bound to be a few players in England who want a piece of that, and Celtic can offer them than.

Brendan knows the English game and the set-up very well of course, so I’m looking forward to seeing the quality he brings in this summer.

Cup for concerns – but not for Celtic

Looking ahead to the Scottish Cup final, and Celtic’s win over Aberdeen last week could be a real indicator of how it might shake out.

You look at Aberdeen and they got battered in the first 12 minutes in that game. To their credit they created plenty of chances after that, but Celtic were still comfortable at 3-1.

On their day Aberdeen have to bring their best performance, and then they’ll need Celtic to have an off-day, if they’re to win the cup.

But that happens more often than you’d think in cup finals.

And Aberdeen have had plenty of experience of Hampden Park in recent years, so that will help a lot, it won’t faze them going down there and putting on a good display.

The concern is for Aberdeen though, is when you look at their last two games versus Celtic and Rangers, is how they collapsed in a very short space of time.

That doesn’t happen. It should never happen.

You can’t concede three goals in 11 minutes, even to Celtic, and it was three goals in about four or five minutes to Rangers. That doesn’t happen.  But now it has – twice – and that’s a big concern.

That’s something they’ve got to work on quickly. They’re a very good team, but that doesn’t happen.

They’ve got nothing to lose now though, and I know people are putting a bit of pressure on to stop Celtic winning the treble.

But that’s not Aberdeen’s target. They’re target is to win the cup for themselves. That’s what the manager will be telling them, that’ll be for sure, to win the cup for themselves.

But if they can’t control those collapses, they’ll have no chance.

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