On Saturday, it will be a month since Preston snapped up Scott Sinclair.
January 8th, Preston completed a move that had been in the works since last summer. North End wanted Sinclair to replace Callum Robinson, but couldn’t pull off a deal with the Bhoys.
Andre Green arrived instead, but with the Aston Villa loanee struggling – and then sent back to Villa Park – it was no surprise to see Preston return for Sinclair in January.
Sinclair bagged his first goal for Preston last weekend, scoring the opening goal against former club Swansea City. Having previously shown glimpses of his class, hopefully this now gets Sinclair truly up and running.
It’s understandable that Sinclair has had to work his way up to full speed. In 2019, Sinclair went from being a key man under Brendan Rodgers to barley playing for Neil Lennon.
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This season, Sinclair made just seven appearances for Celtic, and with his contract expiring in the summer, they decided to let him go and bring the curtain down on a superb spell at Parkhead.
Having reunited with his former Swansea boss Rodgers in 2016, Sinclair became a Celtic hero. The 30-year-old smashed 62 goals in 167 games for Celtic, whilst winning three successive trebles with the club, making history in three-and-a-half years at Parkhead.
Now, Sinclair has looked back on that time, admitting to The Scottish Sun that the winning the treble-treble was ‘really special’, and his time with Celtic was ‘amazing’, adding that he will always be proud of his time with the Bhoys.
However, Sinclair noted that he needed to be playing after years of being on the sidelines at Manchester City and Aston Villa, but felt it was the right time to leave in January, with Preston offering first-team football.
“Winning the treble-treble with the team collectively was really special. There’s no better thing to do than make history for the club,” said Sinclair. “I had an amazing three and a half years at Celtic, winning everything up there and getting great support from the fans. That will always be such a proud time. Brendan Rodgers brought me in to produce and score goals It seems like I’ve had him throughout my whole career. I had him at Chelsea at youth team level, then he brought me to Swansea and we got promoted. Then he brought me to Celtic and I never looked back. He knew how to get the best out of me.”
“Being a footballer is about your game time and when that gets limited and you’re no longer wanted you move on. You have to try and be happy at another team playing week-in, week-out. When I went up there after being in and out of the team at Aston Villa and in previous years not playing at City I was still hungry. The start at Celtic was the best time of my career. I was there for three and a half years, but it was the right time to move back to England. As a squad we won a lot and on an individual note I won the Sports Writers’ Player of the Year award. I had been top scorer for Celtic, so all of the accolades I’d ticked off. It was a great feeling,” he added.