James Forrest, the Celtic winger, is optimistic that Scott Sinclair’s goal for the club on Saturday afternoon against Aberdeen can be the catalyst for the player to rediscover the form he showed in his inaugural season with the Parkhead club. Sinclair was pivotal to the aggression and menace that was the hallmark of Brendan Rodgers’ style of football during Celtic’s Invincible season but last term, despite being the club’s top goalscorer with 17 goals, he did not have the same swagger about his play. This season he has started key games on the bench and has looked short of confidence and form. However, Forrest believes the emotional celebration from Sinclair underlined just how necessary the goal was to his self-belief and expects the Englishman to harness that now. “I was absolutely delighted for him and you could see that the full team was,” he said. “We know what he can do and it is important to have him back and scoring goals as well and you could see from the celebration on Saturday that everyone was buzzing for him.

“In football there isn’t any player who hasn’t had that at some point in their career. There are ups and downs along the way and it is how you come back from that. “Every time he plays he is a threat and coming on on Saturday and scoring will do him the world of good. H is positive and is a real threat going forward. You can see that with the amount of goals and assists he has had in his last two seasons at the club. “ Celtic could certainly do with an in-form Sinclair as they prepare for their second outing in the Europa League this week. Rodgers’ side face Red Bull Salzburg with the expectation being that a robust test will lie in wait in Austria. Salzburg have not lost a game this season and currently sit at the top of their own league. They were denied a Champions League place after drawing with Red Star Belgrade at the qualification stage with the away goal rule toppling them out of Europe’s premier tournament. Celtic secured a win on the opening night of their involvement of the competition when a late Leigh Griffiths goal gave them all three points but building on that win will be a challenge on Thursday night. “The manager has said we want to be in Europe after Christmas especially after the disappointment of going out of the Champions League,” said Forrest.

“We are in a very hard group in the Europa League. We have already beaten Rosenborg after a hard night when the fans were unbelievable. We are looking forward to this campaign and the ultimate aim is to still be in Europa after Christmas.

“When you look at the draw you see there’s still massive teams in this competition, it’s really competitive and there aren’t going to be any easy games.

“We need to be at it for every game we come up against.

“We played Salzburg four years ago in Europe but I think they’ve changed about half of their team from back then,” said Forrest.

“We will start looking into them more over the next couple of days. Any game in Europe is tough and this is definitely going to be a tough game.”