JAMES FORREST is an almost certain starter in tomorrow’s Scottish Cup Final, Celtic’ eighth match at the national stadium since Brendan Rodgers took over in May 2016.
The Irishman has turned Hampden into a fortress for Celtic – a fortress that Motherwell, Hibs, Aberdeen (twice) and Rangers (three times) have all suffered painful defeats at. Celtic have certainly grown to like the old place and that is in complete contrast to how things were under Ronny Deila where there were quite a few horrible days, some it has to be said as a direct result of bad decisions from the match officials, especially against the two Highland sides.
Forrest has impressed this season. Yesterday Rodgers revealed that he could not promise Charly Musonda the starting place he craves because of the outstanding form that Callum McGregor is in. That form, incidentally, is also the reason that last year’s Player of the Year Scotty Sinclair will start on the bench.
Yesterday Tom Rogic signed a five year deal – we were suggesting last week that a four year deal was imminent – and these three players, Forrest, McGregor and Rogic have been outstanding for Celtic since Brednan Rodgers took over.
Forrest and McGregor have both declared that they’d like to spend their entire careers at Celtic and Rogic’s new deal takes him into testimonial territory.
The future seems very bright, and for these three it’s green and white. Jamesy spoke to the media today ahead of the Final tomorrow.
“We’ve been at Hampden more frequently in the last couple of years, we’ve had a lot of semi-finals and then finals and ever since the manager came in – we have won every game there.
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“We can take a lot of confidence from that, but we know we can’t just turn up,” Forrest said.
“We need to be prepared for a hard game on Saturday.”
“We are not getting carried away. A one-off game against anyone can be hard.
“We need to make sure we turn up from the first minute until the last and make sure we’re at it. Because if we’re not – teams have shown this season that we can be beaten.”
WHAT WAS YOUR FIRST SCOTTISH CUP FINAL and what do you remember about it?
We’d love you to share your memories with The Celtic Star today – simply email editor@thecelticstar.co.uk and we’ll get them up on the site as the build up to tomorrow’s Cup Final continues…
LAST NIGHT The Celtic Star Podcast – A Celtic State of Mind won prestigious The Podcast of the Year Award at the Football Blog Awards in London.
The latest podcast is out this morning – it’s part 2 of the brilliant interview with Celtic’s SLO John Paul Taylor where he selects the games and the soundtracks of his own personal Celtic journey. Loved his memories of the 4-2 game in the first part of his interview. Here’s the latest instalment from the UK’s Football podcast of the year…
Listen to “John Paul Taylor with A Celtic State of Mind (Part 2/3)” on Spreaker.