Scott Sinclair will never get close to rivaling Jimmy McGrory’s scoring record but with five goals in his first five league match the former Aston Villa striker has certainly made his mark on Brendan Rodgers side.
Yesterday’s goal at Inverness edged him into the company of McGrory but more importantly ahead of some of the greatest strikers in Celtic’s history.
Those goals against Hearts, St Johnstone, Aberdeen , Sevco and Inverness take the new bhoy past some special company to the delight of the manager that he has become reunited with.
“If he ends up like Jimmy, he’ll be alright – he’ll be in the Celtic Musical next!” Rodgers joked yesterdat. “You can see his quality.
“It’s the beauty of this team that we are trying to develop. We still have a long way to go. We still have a lot of work to do with our standard of the game with and without the ball.
“This is a team that can play with the ball, create chances but we also have a real counter-attacking threat and that’s where his goal comes from.
“He was deep in his own half and his ability to take the ball up the field very quickly is there and he has a hunger to score goals and it was a wonderful finish.
“He’s 27 and he hasn’t had so many miles in the clock. You see his speed, his natural finishing ability and he will be disappointed not to have scored more on Sunday. He’s really enjoying his life up here in Scotland and he loves playing for Celtic and he will go on to become a great servant for the club.”
CLICK HERE to see the great names Sinclair is ahead of
HENRIK LARSSON
In his first five SPL starts Larsson managed ‘just three goals’- a glorious header away to St Johnstone and a double at home to Aberdeen.
His Celtic debut is remembered for setting up Chic Charnley for the winning goal at Easter Road, a week later there was another blank as Celtic lost 2-1 at home to Dunfermline with Andy Thom scoring for Wim Jansen’s side.
A week later the dread-locked Swede scored in a 2-0 win at St Johnstone with the goals really starting to flow when he notched a double in a 2-0 win at home to Aberdeen.
CHRIS SUTTON
Scored a memorable winner on his debut away to Dundee United and did match Sinclair’s record of five from five games but failed to score in each match.
On his home debut Sutton was sent off in a narrow 1-0 win over Motherwell.
Hearts and Rangers (IL) then suffered doubles from Sutton as his partnership with Henrik Larsson took off but in his fifth league match he had to settle for a supporting role as Celtic beat Hibs with the goals shared between Larsson and Mark Burchill.
JOHN HARTSON
Was a very slow starter as he competed with Larsson and Sutton for a place in Martin O’Neill’s side.
It took the Welsh striker until his TENTH Celtic appearance to open his scoring account with Dundee United taking the brunt of his frustrations with Hartson hitting a hat-trick in the 5-1 home win on October 20.
It was December 1 before Hartson netted again in the SPFL but the £6m signing from Coventry went on to become the last Celtic player to hit 100 goals with Kris Sutton and Anthony Stokes the most recent players to come close to that landmark.
GARY HOOPER
Managed to grab seven goals in his first five SPL matches but failed to net on his fifth league match which prevented him from chasing down the McGrory record.
After an injury interrupted start to his Celtic career the former Scunthorpe striker was on target in a 3-1 win at home to Motherwell, scored twice at Tannadice in the Dougie-Dougie match, scored against Rangers (IL) in the match where Willie Collum took peripheral vision to a new level then smacked a hat-trick past Aberdeen in a 9-0 hammering watched by Sutton and Larsson.
Unfortunately for Hooper his scoring run came to a halt at Tynecastle as Celtic lost 2-0 to Hearts.
MACIEJ ZURAWSKI
It took Maciej four matches to open his Celtic scoring account as Gordon Strachan’s side endured a roller-coaster start to the season.
The Polish striker had the task of replacing Craig Bellamy in the Celtic strike force but it was Craig Beattie and John Hartson that carried the initial goal threat.
Matches against Dundee United, Falkirk and Rangers (IL) passed without a goal from the Pole but after a double at Dunfermline he scored at home to Aberdeen before playing a lead role in winning the title.