Celtic winger James Forrest has urged the Parkhead side to deal him in on a long-term contract.

The Scotland internationalist, shortlisted for the PFA Player of the Year award this term, has admitted that he would love to be a Celt for life.

Forrest looked as though he was set to leave the club in Ronny Deila’s final season after turning down the offer of a contract extension. The player was effectively frozen out for the remaining months of Deila’s reign but then signed a three-year deal upon the arrival of Brendan Rodgers.

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Having been at Celtic since the age of 9, Forrest could envisage spending his entire career with the club.

“Football changes so quickly and you can see that in other people’s careers but I always wanted to stay here and I had that discussion when the new manager came in,” said the winger.

“I worked hard and had a good pre-season and once I got my new contract signed and out of the way it was a huge relief and I’ve kept working hard because I still want to stay here.

“Nowadays it’s less common for players to stay with the same club for their whole career but I’ve been here since I was a wee boy and I know how big a club Celtic is.

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“You’re competing for league titles and cups and trying to get into the Champions League every single year and there’s nothing better for any player then to come up against the best out there.

“But you need to keep at it because Celtic don’t stand still – they spend money on players and everyone is replaceable but I want to be here for as long as I possibly can.”

Meanwhile, Forrest has maintained that there will be cone complacency on Celtic’s part ahead of Sunday’s potential title clincher against Rangers.

The Hoops are undefeated in their last ten games against the Ibrox side but Forrest is wary of any backlash this weekend from Rangers.

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“The boys have a lot of confidence,” he said. “We have had a lot of big games this season and we just want to try and get this league wrapped up as quickly as we can and then get a few games to get ready for the Cup final. We know that Sunday is going to be a hard game and we are going to need to be at it right from the start because every Old Firm game is hard.

“The manager won’t let that happen, he won’t let us put our guard down. He is on us every day in training to make sure the standard is high and everyone says that we have got confidence. We need to make sure we are not complacent because every Old Firm game is hard. People talk about the form book going out the window so we need to make sure we are at it.”